Each year Christians around the world use Lent and its time of prayer, fasting, and reflection to focus on getting their lives in order, before Easter. This year, two of our favorite Christian authors have penned new books to guide a Christian through their Lenten devotions. Both are members of our Living Spiritual Teachers Project. Both are popular retreat leaders, conference speakers, and spiritual midwives for people looking to find their way. (For the other new Lenten book, go to Jesus, Guide of My Life by Joyce Rupp.)
Christine Valters Paintner’s book is designed to challenge a Christian to face, honestly and creatively, what it is that they truly hunger for. She does this by asking the reader to undergo seven types of fast.
Giving each a substantive week of reflections, spiritual practice suggestions (including praying with images), short lessons on classic Christian texts such as the Desert Fathers and Mothers, blessings, and reflection questions, Valters Paintner guides readers to discern their hungers by fasting from these seven things: Consuming, multitasking, scarcity anxiety, speed and rushing, trying to “hold it all together,” planning and deadlines, and certainty.
She writes: “These first few days of Lent, I invite you to consider those physical things you could do without, as a way to give more focus on the less tangible things that hold importance, like relationships. From there, in the remainder of the season, we will focus on patterns and beliefs that we can fast from to bring us into deeper connection with the Holy One.”
This serious fast is also a meaty feast of resources.
try a spiritual practice about yearning
Go Deeper:
Practicing Spirituality with Edward Hays - Lenten Edition: An e-course offering new ways to connect with the Divine in the midst of our hectic and hurried lives.
