If you’re interested in doing something special for Lent this year, here’s a fun idea  for families involving baking  and eating something yummy (it’s an annual tradition for us!).

Another meaningful way to observe Lent is to fast; for inspiration if you’re considering fasting, reflect on the ideas here, here, and here.

Stay tuned because our next blog post will feature an interview with an amazing Christian writer, Keri Wyatt Kent, who will share thoughts about rest, Sabbath-keeping, and how these practices can work in the reality of our busy, modern-day lives.

But in our discussion of be-ing, do-ing can be a real danger. It is dangerous when what we do entirely defines who we are. It is even more dangerous, I think, when doing becomes inextricably linked with how we “use” time–When everything must be utilitarian, practical, or some sort of accomplishment. And it can be especially dangerous when doing = contentment and goodness while non-doing = discontent and discomfort that must be avoided at all costs.

This is certainly not a personal campaign for laziness! That is not the non-doing I’m talking about. For me, this comes down to the practices and disciplines that strip away, for a moment, the protections and habits that insulate us from seeing our real state — the busynesses and myriad of to-dos that cocoon us in a spiritually static state of preoccupation.

There are many practices that help us learn to be — practices I need because they are in a sense so hard at times and thus reveal how necessary they are.

Spiritual disciplines fit different people in different situations at different times. In an interview with an author recently, she reminded me that the disciplines are not a generic aspirin we prescribe to feel all better about life and God. No, we each may need different things in order to better know and experience God in a given season in our life. So with that warning in mind — that these are not a generic prescription! — here are some disciplines and practices that can help us better learn be-ing and strip off, at least temporarily, an obsession with doing:

• Fasting. For me, it may be a much needed fast from technology and an easily formed addiction to social networking. For you, it may be another type of fast.

• Walking. Simple: A walk outdoors, a breath of fresh air, a chance to let swirling thoughts swirl themselves out into a mental calm and a time to listen.

• Silence and Solitude: Intentionally getting away from others and from noise, at least for a time.

• Contemplation and Christian meditation: Focusing on God or God’s Word for an extended period of time in an attitude of prayer, listening, openness, and awareness of God’s presence.

• Sabbath: We’ll discuss this more this month, but this one is key and is oh, so hard at least for me and in our stage of life. This is a practice for the Lord’s Day of abstaining from work and focusing on re-creation with God. I believe one can also aim to foster a “Sabbath-mindset” that embraces Sabbath times and attitudes in moments other than Sunday.

• A commenter on a previous blog post of mine suggested a practice that sounds wonderful and difficult at the same time: 30-minutes a week of doing nothing. No journaling. No specific praying or reading. Just be-ing with God. I love that idea!

There are certainly other practices that help us learn to be. Will you join me this week in seeking God’s leading? How will you set aside time to “be” with God? What “do-ing” will you set aside for awhile as you find a truer and more authentic sense of who you are in God alone?

It felt great.

It’s a word that needs to be said often.

I’m not talking about disciplining children (my kids hear “no!” plenty in that context).

I’m talking about the personal spiritual discipline of saying “no” so that we can more fully say “yes.”

Consider these words from M. Shawn Copeland in Practicing Our Faith (Jossey-Bass):

“[S]pirituality is not a spectator activity. Tough decisions and persistent effort are required of those who seek lives that are whole and holy. If we are to grow in faithful living, we need to renounce the things that choke off the fullness of life that God intended for us . . . We must learn the practice of saying no to that which crowds God out and yes to a way of life that makes space for God.”

It’s a topic I’ve written about before, but I find it’s something I need to regularly remind myself about: how critical it is to know what you want to say “yes” to with your life (physical and emotional energy, time, focus, passion) so that you can feel a freedom and confidence in saying “no” to many other demands. Saying yes and saying no thoughtfully and intentionally enable us to take seriously what it means to “be” — to live our one and only life in a meaningful and significant way.

Our yes must be not only for spiritual things — I believe the full-life God wants for us is a whole-person life. A life including the mind, the arts, culture, entertainment, leisure, work. (There certainly is such a thing as an unhealthy level of involvement in ministry!)

Are there yeses in your life that you’ve committed to out of guilt or people-pleasing or a wrongly placed sense of obligation? Might you need to reconsider those activities or involvements?

What are the yeses you truly desire to say? Yes to certain friendships or relationships? Yes to more family chill time? Yes to a ministry involvement that better fits your calling or passion? Yes to a more freed-up schedule (so you’re not a harried mess when you parent)? Yes to time for your own creative expression (writing, poetry, painting, and so on) or your own intellectual growth (reading)? Yes to more sleep? Yes to exercise? Yes to intentional time with God (even if it is in small bits of time scattered throughout a day or a week)?

To live a life that says the right yeses, we must develop the fortitude to say no — even to very good things. M. Shawn Copeland rightly asks “[A]re we really ready to exert ourselves?”

Lord, give me the strength to say no so that I can intentionally and purposefully say yes!

What about you? What do you desire to say yes to in your life? How can you make room for that yes?

We’ll look at God’s good gift of rest this month, explore principles of Sabbath-keeping, and consider how we might fast from busyness, at least for awhile. As a do-er by nature, I need repeated lessons from God on how to simply be.

I got one such lesson this past Monday. After several nights of sleep deprivation caring for two daughters with high fevers, I felt like I’d hit a wall. I was strung out on caffeine, doing my best to get through the day, living the sometimes-frazzled-mom-life, and really looking forward to some sleep.

And then I literally hit a wall.

Exhaustion and my natural klutziness proved to be a dangerous combination as–I’m still not sure exactly how this happened–I stood up from picking up the umpteenth mess on the floor and somehow rammed my head against a half-wall in our house. The results weren’t pretty and a couple hours later I was back home from the emergency room with staples in my head and strict instructions to take it easy for the next day or so.

So my to-do list has been forcibly scrapped. I’ve been doing life on the couch for a day. It’s been a bit boring, but has involved ample quiet and a chance to read a bit more of Les Mis. (Did I mention my husband stayed home to take care of the children? Bless him!)

But it’s been a reminder that time in quiet, time just being, time resting and recuperating is a good, good thing.

Sadly it took an injury for me to get this time — and that’s the reality for many of us. Real life (parenting, work, responsibilities) doesn’t suddenly stop so that we can take “time off.”

But maybe, as we’re creative and intentional, we can seek to find precious moments of peace in our everyday lives  (no staples in the head required!).

Join me this month as we journey together into God’s call for us to just “be.”

The  other day I listened to a powerful radio-show podcast on gratitude featuring R.T. Kendall. Kendall encourages listeners to intentionally pause and reflect with gratitude through the practice of journalling. ”What I do now every day,” Kendall explained, “is read my journal from yesterday, go through every item, and thank the Lord for every little thing. Do you know how long it takes? About 20 seconds.”

What an easy, meaningful practice! Kendall is a journaller like me in the sense that he likes to record and describe all sorts of thoughts and events in a given day. But God made us all different — and for some, the idea of all that writing is just not a good fit.

Another very, very simple way of keeping a gratitude journal is simply committing to write just one (or maybe just three) items each day that you’re thankful for.

Even if you are unable to keep a journal long-term, perhaps you can commit  just for this week to create a short list of “thank yous” to God. If you’re willing to commit just 15-minutes to prayerful gratitude-journalling, I can guarantee your list will NOT be short!

Ah . . . so, so much to receive, to treasure, to be grateful for.

Are you ready, Caryn? Give me your first reaction to this question: What are ten things you’re thankful for? (No cheating: share the first 10 that come to mind.)

Opportunities to write. My kids. My friends. My home. Food. My family’s health. My computer. Facebook. My husband. My dog. (Let’s hope my husband doesn’t see this list! Poor guy eeked in just above the dog. At least he knows how much I love that dog.)

Grumble Hallelujah begins with a description of a low, stressed-out moment for you when you muttered to your husband “I hate my life!” And you also write about the importance of actually grieving the loss of dreams or of ways we might have once hoped our life would turn out. So not to start out too negative here, but why must we come to terms with what we may “hate” about our lives? Why is grieving an important starting place?

 I think grieving the losses is important because it means we’ve actually taken the time to acknowledge the losses and that we’ve determined that the loss was significant enough to grieve. Often times when we’re in the dumps because of junky finances or unfulfilling relationships or just not being where we thought we’d be, we tend to scold ourselves. “How dare I complain about money when so many are so worse off….” “Well, at least I have other friends…..” That sort of thing.

But—as a therapist told me years ago—pain is pain. And it does no good to deny it. So, that’s why I think we need to grieve our hurts and losses and disappointments. Instead of letting the hurt fester down deep and ultimately become bitter, grief allows us to “process” it—to use a therapy-y term—and move forward.

Plus, the Bible tells us to grieve. James tells us that we should let our grief “humble” us before God so he can swoop in and lift us up.  I take this to mean that if we don’t grieve our losses, if we don’t turn our joy to gloom as James says, we’re really just trying to plug away on our own power and not depend on God. Grief is an opportunity to turn it all over to God and trust him.

In your book, you discuss the importance of letting go of our own expectations of how God works (or how we think he ought to work in our lives). Why is this so essential? How can this “letting go” enable us to live in gratitude?

Well, when we’re looking around at how God is working in everyone’s lives or we’re stuck on certain methods that we think God should be employing in our lives, we miss out on the actual work he is doing in our lives.

We miss so much when we don’t let God be God and when we don’t learn to notice him. And when we don’t notice him—and his blessings—it’s hard to be grateful.

The reality is that we’re all prone to be grumbly — there’s a bit of Eeyore in all of us! What encouragement or advice can you offer to my readers about ways we can battle our human tendency toward grumbling, whining, and general discontent?

It’s funny because I don’t really think I’m a natural grumbler or whiner. I mean, I have my moments, but my tendency is to hunker down and press on, never letting others see I’m defeated. Or, at least, that was my natural tendency.

But to those who feel grumbly or discontent all the time, I’d say, that’s no place to be. Grumbling unchecked can become bitterness in a hurry. Especially if it’s grumbling without the hallelujah.

I believe we DO need to allow ourselves time to grumble, to complain, to shake our fists at God. But if we don’t end those sessions with some kind of hallelujah or some sort of ultimate acknowledgement of our trust in or love for him, we’re on the road to a miserable life.

Good grumbling should lead to greater joy and thankfulness.

In the book, I also offer my three “things” that help me know when or what I should be grieving or grumbling about—the things that keep me from whining to God about every last thing in life. They are: 1. What breaks my heart; 2. What I cannot change; and 3. What I have lost.

Others may have their own. But these—which can be applied broadly or locally—help me.

I love the subtitle of your book: Learning to love your life even when it lets you down. That learning curve can be pretty sharp — the process of choosing to love and be grateful and content in our lives requires of a lot of us! What’s this learning-to-love-your-life process been like for you personally? How have you ben changed by it?

Um. The process has been painful. Dreadful. But wonderful. It’s been a time (a long time!) of learning to let go, to lean not on my own understanding of life, if you will. But it’s been in the noticing of how God has used some of these hurts and frustrations and disappointments (many of which I still feel, by the way!) that has brought me a new-found love of life.

I realize how God has shaped me and grown me and set my life on a better trajectory through these trials. And wow. I just wouldn’t want to go back to the way I was—or my life was—before.

I love my life now because I believe I’m so much more in tune with God, with where he wants me, and with where he wants me to go. Sometimes I wish we could learn these sorts of lessons and develop this sort of understanding in easier ways—and maybe some people can. But I apparently can’t. And I’m grateful that God loves me enough to turn rough spots into bright ones.

Caryn, thanks again for swinging by! Readers, you can find Caryn on Facebook and at www.carynrivadeneira.com.

As a kid, saying thank you is of the utmost importance. You know you’re supposed to do it almost constantly. And if you don’t, Mommy’s voice is there with the warning prompt, “Say thank you.” It’s something we’re taught because it’s significant. It’s more than mere politeness — a habit of saying thanks shapes our attitude and posture toward the world.

Ah, but then we grow up. Mommy’s not there any more with her “Say thank you” and we’re left to be as grateful as we wanna be. Do we desire to be grateful? Sure! But often we’re like those nine who — and my childhood shock still rises as I write this — were healed from a terrible disease and a lifetime of being ostracized, and did not turn to say “thank you”! Somehow, even in this dramatic event-of-all-events in their lives, gratitude fell to the wayside.

Only one — a double outsider who was not only a leper but also a Samaritan — came to Jesus and praised him in overflowing gratitude and faith.

What’s strikes me today is the importance of recognizing that this account is not a parable. It sort of reads like one — like a lesson cloaked in hyperbole. After all, there’s no way only one would say thanks! . . . Right?

But it’s no parable. It’s something that literally happened, making its lesson all the more powerful.

The “90%” in this account probably felt grateful later. They likely had moments of wonder that evening as the shock wore off and they realized they’d been healed. But for some reason a “thank you” wasn’t their instinctive reaction. We can speculate why, but perhaps the more weighty matter at hand is considering the question for ourselves.

Why am I  often so neglectful of the practice of expressing gratitude to God? I’ll be pondering and praying about this question today. Will you join me?

But this year God’s nudging me in another direction. Rather than looking ahead, he’s inviting me to look back. To begin 2012 with gratitude.

Will you join me?

“It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD” (Psalm 92:1, ESV). It is a good so often neglected.

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly . . . singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Colossians 3:16, NIV). It is a spiritual song that can well up within us . . . if we choose to nurture it.

So I pause to say I am grateful. Grateful for life. For breath. For health. For family. For friends. For shelter. For resources. For opportunities. For love. For God.

This January, join me in pondering, practicing, and learning from God about gratitude.

Christmas wasn’t just yesterday. In the church calendar, Christmas literally is to be celebrated for 12 days! So even today in your post-Christmas-Day-recovery-mode, your heart can continue to sing at the manger and wonder at the glory of the Incarnation.

One simple celebration idea I want to share is to infuse this week with music. Christmas carols and hymns proclaim some of the most stunning theological truths! One of my favorite web sites, the cyberhymnal, has the lyrics (and music to listen to) for 507 Christmas hymns. Yes, 507!!!

So, if you want to sing them all, that’s 42.25 songs per day for the 12 days of Christmas. (If you missed yesterday, you’ll need to catch up!)

But in all seriousness, I do believe one of the most profound ways I’ve encountered God in my personal times of prayer and worship has been in pondering old hymns that are new to me. Find time this week to visit Cyberhymnal (or your own hymnal on your bookshelf) and prayerfully ponder the lyrics of a Christmas hymn that is new to you.

When all is cleaned up, when our culture has moved on from Christmas after just 24-hours, you can remain at the manger.

Live in the wonder.