water and sand do go together sometimes

One of the dangers for Lent is that we try to take on too much. We can fall into the trap of giving up something that we enjoy and in many ways helps us be who we are. (This is not always the case) We can also take things on, sometimes too many.

I am trying to find sometime to read every day, and also write. Writing something in this blog every day is part of the discipline. I also need to produce a couple of proposals for publishers as well, but that is not Lenten discipline, it is keeping a promise. My initial intention was to read a book a week. I have now had to rethink that. Reading should not be a route march on to the next piece of literature. It is meant to cause us to think.

I am reading H is for Hawk at the moment. This morning, I came across the rather wonderful phrase: ‘solitude is the cure for loneliness’. I have still chewing on this phrase a couple of hours after the words beginning to sink into my being.

Those who are solitary are not usually lonely. They have discovered how to be. Lent is for that. Discovering who we are. Surely that is one of the things Christ was doing in the wilderness. Of course, in the wilderness, he was not completely alone: the wild animals were with him, as Mark’s story of Jesus puts it, and the angels ministered to him.

That is enough for today. My faithful hounds remind me that they need to be fed.