Faith

It is Monday, February 4th and a beautiful day it is, sunny and 65 degrees.

It will get cold tonight and tomorrow is forecast to bring up to 5 inches of snow.

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. A paraphrase from memory of Pope Benedict XVI’s message for Lent:

The work of Lent is prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

What am I going to do for Lent? I have been thinking about it. Read the classic The Day Christ Died by Jim Bishop. I guess it is a “classic” for its genre. I am also thinking that I should do the things I set as goals during Advent but didn’t do. Contact old friends and family whom I have, or nearly have, lost contact with. Write two hours a day, read two hours a day, and pray more. We’ll see.

What about fasting and almsgiving?

Been reading a bit of John Updike today. Due Considerations is due back at the Library in a couple days and I marked several pieces I want to read before returning it. Today I read his essay about the future of faith written for The New Yorker. Here is a quote:

“Faith is not so much a binary pole as a quantum state, which tends to vanish when closely examined.”