A couple of years ago I put together an Easter playlist (one of my most searched-for posts - thank you, Uncle Google!). Since today is Ash Wednesday, I'm reposting and updating my list of songs that follow me through the Lenten season...

Karen's Must-Have Easter Playlist

(in alphabetical order by song, non-exhaustive as this is limited to my own itunes catalog)

40 / U2
All Because of You / U2
Amazing Grace / Sufjan Stevens
Awake My Soul / Mumford & Sons
Awakening / Sara Groves
Beyond The Sky / Fernando Ortega
Body And Wine / Jars Of Clay
City Of Sorrows / Fernando Ortega
Come Clean / Audrey Assad
Come Thou Fount / Sara Groves
Come Thou Fount / Sufjan Stevens
Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy / Fernando Ortega
The Comforter Has Come / Jars Of Clay
Creed / Rich Mullins
Death and all his Friends / Coldplay

Every Season / Nichole Nordeman
Gethsemene / Keith and Kristyn Getty
Gloria / U2
Grace / U2
Hallowed / Jennifer Knapp & Phil Keaggy
Handel: The Messiah - Allegro Moderato
He Reigns / Newsboys
He Will Come / Waterdeep
He's Always Been Faithful / Sara Groves
Healed / Nichole Nordeman
Holy, Holy, Holy / Sufjan Stevens (download this now. seriously. right now.)
How Can I Tell / Sara Groves
How Deep the Father's Love for Us / Page CXVI
How Deep the Father's Love for Us / Wilder Adkins
How He Loves / David Crowder Band
I Am / Nichole Nordeman
I'll Wait / Sara Groves
I Will Sing Of My Redeemer / Fernando Ortega
I Will Wait / Mumford & Sons
In Christ Alone / (it doesn't matter the artist)
Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet / Jars Of Clay
Jesus, King of Angels / Fernando Ortega
Jesus, You're Beautiful / Sara Groves
Kingdom Comes / Sara Groves
Less Like Scars / Sara Groves
Love Will Find Us / Jars Of Clay & Sara Groves
Lover of the Light / Mumford & Sons
The Man Comes Around / Johnny Cash
My Deliverer / Rich Mullins
My God Has Come to Save Me / Waterdeep
No Greater Love / Jars of Clay
No One Else / Fernando Ortega
Precious Again / Sara Groves
Precious Lord, Take my Hand / Kansas City Chorale
Psalm 18 / Waterdeep
Psalm 131 / Waterdeep
Rest in You / Waterdeep
Rise Up / Ben Shive
Roll Away Your Stone / Mumford & Sons
Romans / Jennifer Knapp
Sing Alleluia / Jennifer Knapp & Mac Powell
Sing To Jesus / Fernando Ortega
Something Changed / Sara Groves
Tears Of The Saints / Leeland
There Is A River / Jars Of Clay
This Too Shall Be Made Right / Derek Webb
Till Kingdom Come / Coldplay
The Transfiguration / Sufjan Stevens
Walls & Tall Shadows / Waterdeep
We Will Follow / Jars of Clay & Gungor
What If / Nichole Nordeman
What is Not Love / Derek Webb
Where The Streets Have No Name / U2 (Please Single)
Yahweh / U2
You Are Lovely / Waterdeep
You Are the Sun / Sara Groves
You Did Not Have A Home / Rich Mullins
You Did That For Me / Sara Groves

So, if you're keeping track, essentially anything by U2, Sara Groves, Rich Mullins, Waterdeep - and, yes, even Mumford & Sons - will do you well this season. (And once my friend John's album is released, you can be sure next year's list will be oh-mazing.)

This post contains zero affiliate links. Just me lovin' on some artists. I've linked to those that are new, indie, or not yet known so you can discover them, too. 

What music speaks to you this time of year?

Confession, Sacrifice, and Praying the prayers of incredibly intelligent and spiritual people

If I were to be honest, I'd say that the words sacrifice, penitence, and confession make me uncomfortable. And even though I am sometimes a cynical person, I prefer the bright, happy clappy side of faith compared to the dark repentance and suffering side.

{a toddler has entered the room... if I type very quietly, he won't know I'm here...}

In the past I've preferred to give up something slightly superficial for Lent (chocolate, Facebook) in lieu of practicing the deeper, soul-searching stuff (fasting, liturgy). While the former did indeed allow me to focus more on Christ and my family during the Lenten season, I think the latter might foster a greater dependence on and knowledge of Christ.

All that to say is, I'm still contemplating what exactly to fast from this go-round (apart from coffeeshops, which is my favourite treat in the whole world, as me and the kiddos have decided to abstain from certain earthly pleasure like lattes and toy-coveting and save that little bit of money to give to IJM), but I'm also trying to actually follow a devotional/prayer/study plan for Lent.

As you know, I am super terrible at follow-through. I like to blame my carefree spirit and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-trousers type of lifestyle, but really it's that I'm a lazy sinner and put my need for sleep and Grey's Anatomy ahead of my need to communicate with and confess before God.

So in an effort to be accountable - and with the ease of technology - I've committed to doing YouVersion's Devotions for Lent from Holy Bible: Mosaic. I've set an alarm on my phone that tells me it's time to read and reflect, and also get emails every morning with that day's prayer and reading.

I'm also investigating the "offices" which is a word some people throw around, obviously knowing that's shorthand for "praying the prayers of incredibly intelligent and spiritual people." It's new to me, but it just so happens that my mom gave me the book "Common Prayer: a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals" which includes morning and evening prayers, as well as daily meditations from saints of yore.

And then there's the Hello Mornings study, the book our community group is reading, the nightly devotions with Jack... I am literally surrounded by God's word.

Now don't get me wrong: I will fail at this. I've got three kids who occasionally need to be fed, and there's laundry everywhere, and I'm a sinner. I've not woken up early to read and pray one single day this week. But I want to at least try. And then mess up. And then try again. Because I think the idea of this Lent thing is, as we grow closer to Jesus in these tiny acts of suffering and sacrificing (which, compared to His, are indeed minuscule in comparison), we become more and more aware of our desperate need of a Saviour.

And with that, a thought from Thomas Merton:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I don't think it's ever too late to start praying, reading, meditating or confessing... I'd love to hear your thoughts, what you're doing this season, or if you want to join me in any of these things.

This time (the year before the year before) last year.

Holidays will do that to you.

Remind you of what was, or what isn't. You find yourself saying, "this time last year" or the year before, or the year before that.  You smile when you think of the first Ash Wednesday your son remembers, more for the pancakes than the ashes. And you walk the aisles of the supermarket, intent on maintaining any semblance of tradition through the years and the moves and the countries.

It's not terribly hard, not really all that sad. But it is movement, it is change, it is a longing for security and steadiness and sanity. It is not wanting to forget but also trying to move forward. It is hope and doubt, rolled into one. It is faith.

The email pings just now, a hotel or an airline or a booking agency. The emails never end, hinting that we should be going somewhere. We will, even if it's the slow steady ascent up the faith mountain, or a drive into the city to claim and wear the ashes.

After all... it's the Person - not the place - we seek. 

Best of '11 in Words : Facebook fasting and other Lenten activities

I've not really done a Best Of when it comes to my own words, but 2011 turned out to be not too shabby when it comes to the practice of writing. Not that it's all be brilliance, but I turned back to writing this year when other things seemed to slip through my fingers. So I've spent a bit of time rereading what I put down and to see if I've embraced it or hidden from it or changed from it. And here, from March, is the first...

***

We didn't really do Lent growing up.

I'm not really sure why we didn't commemorate it, but I think we always considered our family and church just plain old Christian... nothing fancy like Catholic or mainline Protestant. They did the big-word type things (lent, confirmation, catechism, etc), not us. In fact, I didn't think twice about it until we moved overseas and it seemed like everybody - and I mean everybody, including my 6 year old little boy upon arriving home from school - declared a traditional belief in the cross by bearing it's ashen symbol on their foreheads. I think a part of me fancied this notion, this obvious display of faith (or rather, if I were to be honest, of religion). There were conversations had and ideas floated and it came to pass that the husband and I decided to do Lent.

Now, I cannot remember what I "gave up" for Lent that first year, but I'm pretty sure it was chocolate, and I'm more than sure it was short-lived. My noteworthy failure at abstaining for a few short weeks left me disturbed by my apparent weakness, lack of self control, and inability to maintain a true sacrificial faith.

Since that time, I began contemplating Lent, what I really truly wanted to give up for this period of meditation. What did I cling to that I did not need? What took up time or wasted precious energy? What was it in my life that was more distraction than enhancement of who God created me to be? The answer was quite obvious: Facebook. I could very well go on about the evil toils of Facebook, but you most likely already know them and can see where I'm headed.

Instead I'll tell you I looked forward to Lent this year, not just because of my anxiousness to rid myself, temporarily, of this self-serving vice (who doesn't get a kick out of posting mild braggings and beautiful pictures of children and husbands for all the world - and exboyfriends - to see?), but also to consider "putting on" something in deference to what Christ put on for me: all the shame, all the sin, all the pain in the world, on His shoulders as payment for what I will and would do.

So for Lent this year, as I give up Facebook for 40 days, I'm going to try and put on communing with Jesus - and with you - through writing. My mind has been too cluttered lately, my thoughts too fuzzy, my soul too parched to really share with God and with others what's in my heart. I'm looking forward to clearing the air, opening the windows, and letting the wind and the sunshine in. I know He has been waiting for me to do this, and even now I'm wondering why I needed to wait until Lent began to do this. I could've, should've, done this ages ago!

But, today is where I am and today is where I start. I'm desperate to meet the Father here in a new way, and I hope you'll come meet me here, too.

Facebook fasting and other Lenten activities

We didn't really do Lent growing up.

I'm not really sure why we didn't commemorate it, but I think we always considered our family and church just plain old Christian... nothing fancy like Catholic or mainline Protestant. They did the big-word type things (lent, confirmation, catechism, etc), not us. In fact, I didn't think twice about it until we moved overseas and it seemed like everybody - and I mean everybody, including my 6 year old little boy upon arriving home from school - declared a traditional belief in the cross by bearing it's ashen symbol on their foreheads. I think a part of me fancied this notion, this obvious display of faith (or rather, if I were to be honest, of religion). There were conversations had and ideas floated and it came to pass that the husband and I decided to do Lent.

Now, I cannot remember what I "gave up" for Lent that first year, but I'm pretty sure it was chocolate, and I'm more than sure it was short-lived. My noteworthy failure at abstaining for a few short weeks left me disturbed by my apparent weakness, lack of self control, and inability to maintain a true sacrificial faith.

Since that time, I began contemplating Lent, what I really truly wanted to give up for this period of meditation. What did I cling to that I did not need? What took up time or wasted precious energy? What was it in my life that was more distraction than enhancement of who God created me to be? The answer was quite obvious: Facebook. I could very well go on about the evil toils of Facebook, but you most likely already know them and can see where I'm headed.

Instead I'll tell you I looked forward to Lent this year, not just because of my anxiousness to rid myself, temporarily, of this self-serving vice (who doesn't get a kick out of posting mild braggings and beautiful pictures of children and husbands for all the world - and exboyfriends - to see?), but also to consider "putting on" something in deference to what Christ put on for me: all the shame, all the sin, all the pain in the world, on His shoulders as payment for what I will and would do.

So for Lent this year, as I give up Facebook for 40 days, I'm going to try and put on communing with Jesus - and with you - through writing. My mind has been too cluttered lately, my thoughts too fuzzy, my soul too parched to really share with God and with others what's in my heart. I'm looking forward to clearing the air, opening the windows, and letting the wind and the sunshine in. I know He has been waiting for me to do this, and even now I'm wondering why I needed to wait until Lent began to do this. I could've, should've, done this ages ago!

But, today is where I am and today is where I start. I'm desperate to meet the Father here in a new way, and I hope you'll come meet me here, too.