Stop and Take Stock

Lenten Lilies, or a close relation

Many Christians all over the world are now observing Lent.  Traditionally Lent was a time for fasting, especially going without meat because meat was in short supply at this time of year. The Church turned this into a virtue saying that going without was a way to learn self-control and instigated a 40 day period of fasting to correspond to Jesus' time of fasting in the Wilderness, which in turn reflected the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness after fleeing Egypt.

Lent is 40 days plus Sundays. Sundays don't count as fast days because Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, so that is always a day for rejoicing.   In church today our vicar suggested that the Sundays in Lent could be seen as a glimpse of Easter to come. She also suggested that rather than use Sunday as a day to over-indulge if we've been struggling to keep off chocolate, biscuits, alcohol or whatever all week, we might do better to reflect on how we'd been doing in the week, where we might have struggled and why, so that we could consider how we might do better next week.

So I'd like to encourage you to join me in taking a little time on Sundays to take stock by reflecting on how well we did at fighting Climate Change in the last week and how well we managed to live in a way that did as little harm as possible to anyone or anything.  Hopefully we'll also manage to have a positive effect on the people around us and maybe our environment as well.   These are all things I hope to look at over the coming weeks.

So how did I do?


I didn't drive much because hubby needed the car for work much of last week, but I didn't walk much either because I was busy writing this blog in between normal everyday chores.

I did manage to walk to church this morning, though, by making the effort to leave earlier, but I didn't have to get any children ready, just myself.

What could I do better?
I might need to blog a bit less in the coming week. Ideally I'll make shorter posts rather than blog less often. 

Considering the reason for any lack of progress can also be a useful exercise. Changing old habits can take a lot of effort. However, sometimes we're hanging onto an idea that the past was better than it was, a bit like the Israelites who remembered that they'd enjoyed eating leeks in Egypt while forgetting that they had been slaves living under harsh conditions.  However much we enjoy leeks or whatever, it's best not to go back to our "Egypt".

I shan't be giving myself or anyone else any medals because we are all different. Someone who is fit and healthy will find it easier to walk instead of drive than someone who is less fit. Someone who works locally will find it easier to walk than someone with a long commute. Some jobs involve more travel than others. Someone with young children could find it harder to get ready early enough to walk.   The thing is to find something we can change and do our best to keep it up.

The idea of this blog is to help me and you make positive changes to the way we live over time.       
I shall try to introduce new ideas for living in a more sustainable and more generous way as the weeks go by.  It's up to you to decide if any particular idea is right for you and your circumstances at the time.