Ash Wednesday

So today has been a crummy day.  Nothing catastrophically big or bad has happened, but it's been one of those days where it is a series of small annoyances that have popped up one after the other after the other.  Nothing insurmountable, but just "one of those days."

What has been surprising to me is how many times I have picked up my phone to check facebook.  I hadn't realized just how much I have been using it as a distraction.  It wasn't that I had the need to post anything, but I found myself reaching for it so that I could read about other peoples days rather than figure out how to positively turn my own day around.  It is a very interesting thing. 

I have discovered that when I am stressed and annoyed about something in my day, I use it as a distraction.  Also, when waiting for my husband to go into a building and pay a bill and come out, my instinct was to reach for it, to fill time and read while waiting. 

I think as a society, with all of the instant technology in our hands, we have forgotten how to wait. 

Ironic.  The Lenten season is all about waiting.  We are waiting for the time that Our Lord died on the cross, and waiting for the time that He was resurrected.  It is a time of listening, and reflecting, and waiting.  I have forgotten how to wait. 

What can I do that is productive during these times I would reach for my phone?  Of course, I can pray.  I can think about the situation I am in and decide to make it as positive an experience as I can.  I can talk to a saint and ask him/her to pray for me.  I can do any number of things.  Or I can wait.  I can just wait quietly and patiently and enjoy the beauty that I am surrounded by, the beauty I often fail to see because of any various number of electronic devices in my hand, the beauty that is hidden by the distractions that I put in front of myself. 

We went to an Ash Wednesday Mass this afternoon.  On our way into the church in the parking lot, we saw one of the priests that is covering our parish while our priest is on a medical leave.  Yesterday, at the pancake supper, Juliette had asked him if priests have to give up stuff for Lent too.  He told her yes, that it wouldn't be right for him to ask us to give something up when he wasn't willing to do that himself.  He came over to us to tell Jules something he had forgotten.  If you are over the age of 59, you are not required to fast during Lent.  But, he told her, he recommended it anyway, because what a beautiful thing it is.  Such words of wisdom.

I am excited to learn to be quiet, and to learn to wait, and to learn just stop and see the beauty of what's around me.