I hope everyone’s enjoying their Fat Tuesday. I plan on “feasting” on a bowl of pasta in a cream tomato sauce with roasted cauliflower on the side and watching some Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs.

Lent is upon us again and what’s struck me this year, as in years past, is just how crappy I am at living the Christian life. As a Lutheran, I should fully expect this. And yet it’s always a bit disappointing.

On the other hand, there’s some deeply embedded wisdom in the tradition of dedicating Lent to prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. For a very simple reason: this is what Christians should be doing all the time anyway! Lent isn’t about adding on onerous new tasks, but recommitting ourselves to the Christian life.

So, maybe one way of looking at Lent is that it’s our opportunity to begin anew what we should’ve been doing all along. A kind of reset button for the Christian life.

Similarly, Luther recommended “drowning” our old self anew every morning in the memory of our baptism, recognizing that we’re always beginning anew and we always need grace and forgiveness. Spiritual “progress”–particularly self-discerned–is often a snare and delusion.

Anyway, that’s how I make myself feel better about my backsliding and sloth over the last year (among other sins, known and unknown). So, tomorrow I’ll have the ashes imposed on my forehead and try to remember that my efforts are always going to be dust, but that living into God’s ever-present and unfailing grace is our truest calling.

(I have a sneaking suspicion I wrote a similarly-themed post in some previous year, but that just proves my point, doesn’t it?)