Intentional

I was walking down one of the hallways after church with a friend and we were talking about what to give up for Lent, whether I should try out giving up meat this year, what my friend should do, et cetera. Sometimes in life, some spirit of good takes over my thoughts and my mouth and my emotions and at the exact moment when I want to curl up on the floor and cry, a good word pours out of my mouth. This happened as we were walking apart (I assume I was late for a meeting or a show and that's why I didn't stop to finish the conversation). I said something like, "Maybe you can give up thinking bad thoughts. You know, be more intentional with the way you think."

Be more intentional. Don't let yourself think those damaging thoughts. Be more intentional.

Yesterday, as I was trying to make something happen between my brain, my fingers and the keyboard, the word maintaining kept coming up. I've just been maintaining; you know, maybe maintaining isn't so bad; sometimes maintaining takes just as much effort as excelling; I feel like I'm maintaining this life, stuck in this cage, unable to make anything happen. I do think that's what I've been doing recently, maybe for most of this year: maintain, just get through this stretch, keep it up, just stay at this altitude, we can do this. There's no climbing or sinking. Just maintaining.

In a way, I think being intentional is the opposite of maintaining. Being intentional means having a purpose, and working to accomplish that purpose. Maintaining is just staying the course. It's that boring part that movies and books skip over because no one wants to read about the three years you spent just making ends meeting, just keeping things together. When you're intentional, you're making changes that are propelling you in a new direction. You're thinking your way through things. You're making things happen. You're acting. You say no (oo-oo) to status quo.

So I'm being more intentional for Lent. I'm putting my brain back into my faith. I'm watching the things that I think and say and do, and I'm questioning the thoughts I've let run ruts into my mind. I'm also giving up things (which I won't list, because then you'll think less of me) but they're mostly places where I've let myself hide, things I don't actually need. See, the great thing about the Christian year (in tandem with my regular year) is that it gives you so many chances to start over: Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, the chance to start a new year there, and it's often followed by the summer, a chance to start something completely different than the school year; fall comes around and it's a school year again; then Advent and the chance to think about the coming of Christ in new ways; then Christmas and the New Year; then Lent, this chance to re-focus yourself, to understand anew what Christ's life means; and finally, to top it all off, Easter. If Easter's not a new beginning, I don't know what is. So this chance to try again is the perfect time to be more intentional, to stop maintaining and to begin to take some actions.

Just as long as I can get grace to do that, since maintaining was taking all that I had.