Usually as we approach Lent we think of disciplines that cut away and simplify, the stereotypical 'giving up' of things in order to let us draw closer to God in our daily walks. While I am certainly not opposed to this practice, this year, I am going to try a bit of a different approach: the addition of disciplines to my spiritual walk for the same purpose of drawing closer to Christ. These changes may indeed force me to give things up as I change my routine, but the focus will not be as much on paring things away as it will be adding things of benefit.

Specifically, what am I planning to do? Two things.

First, I am going to take on the discipline of praying / singing through the Psalter on the historic 30-day cycle found in the Book of Common Prayer. While there is nothing specifically Anglican about this practice--to my knowledge--my new Concordia Psalter adopts the BoCP plan, so this specific plan has its roots in Anglicanism. That said, praying and singing the Psalms pre-dates Christianity and makes up part of our rich inheritance from Judaism. I love the honesty of the Psalter, for in it we find the gamut of human emotions, from exalted praise to sin-wracked anguish and everything in between. I look forward to the time to focus on them in a way I have not done before.

Second, I am returning to the discipline of blogging. "Um, what?" you might ask. Blogging for me has never been about an audience but has primarily been a way for me to focus and think out loud through whatever topics I am mulling over and working through in my life. I've always been more concerned with the writing than with SEO, traffic, etc., as a result, blogging is intensely personal while simultaneously expressive. In other words, committing myself to write routinely is also committing to deeper thinking and plumbing the depths of Scripture, tradition, history, and my own experience. I haven't decided how often I am going to commit to write, but I figure three times a week, at a minimum seems like a reasonable goal, if not daily.

As we approach Lent, how will you look at it this year? A time to give something up? A time to add something? Both?