You may be wondering what happened with my Lent challenge to
complete 40 acts of beauty, one act for each day. Well, it was pretty much a failure. I didn’t complete 40 acts of beauty.
There were a number of factors that contributed to my
failure:
Part of the trouble was I got lazy and busy and just didn’t
take the time to complete acts of beauty.
Part of the trouble was I had difficulty thinking up
creative beautiful things to do.
Part of the trouble was I found myself wanting to record
beautiful things that I noticed or that I wanted to claim that I did beautiful
things when in reality I was just happened to be in the right place and got to
be a part of something beautiful. Sure,
it does take some initiative and effort on my part to consent to being a part
of a beautiful situation God places me in, but this wasn’t the point of my Lent
challenge.
And part of the trouble was I struggled to do beautiful
things when I kept noticing all the incredibly beautiful things that God does
in this world: the sunsets, the sunrises, the flowers, the trees, the birds,
the people, the way things always seem to work out even if it’s not as I would
have imagined they would. Nothing I can
do will ever compare to the beauty that God has created and will create. I often found myself thinking it was futile
to try to do anything beautiful because it couldn’t ever compare to the
beautiful things God does. More than
once I found myself frustrated that I couldn’t do great acts of beauty and
frustrated that I was failing in my Lenten challenge.
But my Lenten journey to complete 40 acts of beauty wasn’t a
complete failure…
My frustration and realization that I had failed show me
that I did learn something about myself and I learned something about God.
I learned that God is the maker of all things beautiful: the
physical, the immaterial, everything (I guess I knew this all along, but now I
know it on a much deeper level.).
Nothing and I mean nothing I do or make or say or create
will ever come anywhere close to being able to compare to the beautiful things
God has done and will continue to do in the world.
I learned to look for and appreciate the beauty in
life.
I learned that I sometimes think I can do more than I really
can. And I often think that I can do far
more on my own without relying on God.
Anne Lamott says a beautiful truthful thing in a few of her
books: If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans. Yep, I’m sure God was up in Heaven laughing
at me when I told God about my plans for Lent. And now God and I are laughing together as we
both see that I have learned and re-learned some important lessons.
Here’s the remainder of the kinda close to 40 acts of beauty
that I did complete:
9. I did my best to ensure that a former co-worker's last evening
at work was beautiful.
10. Spent a couple of hours working on a
knitting project- something I’m knitting for a friend.
11. I went for a run. The gorgeous spring weather just drew me
outside.
12. Started seeds for
my vegetable garden
13. Completed my art
project
14. Decorated my
office
15. Brought my bike
up from the basement and got it in outdoor riding condition
16. Went biking
outside!
17. Got out and set
up my rain barrel (already full of water and ready to water my vegetable
garden)
18. Set up my clothes
drying rack
19. Dried clothes
outside numerous times
20. Went to see and
meet Anne Lamott
21. Decided I’m going
to be a writer
22. Kept the house
somewhat clean and under control while my mom was away on spring break vacation
24. Wrote a lot
25. Read more than I
have been over the past few months
26. Had patience and
understanding in a difficult situation
27. Completed a
knitting project that I have been working on for far too long
28. Made some
delicious minestrone soup. The only change I made was to use veggie
broth instead of chicken broth.
29. Found a pattern
for my next knitting project…a baby blanket
30. Did some planning
and work for the church community garden
