Greenblade - creation - faith - justice
User Login
Leeks and Liturgy
Lenten Observations
POSTED 02/20/10, 11:26 AM EST BY STEPHANIE ORTOLANO
As Ash Wednesday approached, I started talking to Sabina about Lent and some of the things that people do in observing the season before Easter. We talked about how some people sacrifice something they like to do or eat. She was very enthusiastic about the idea of giving up ice cream, an example I used when telling her something Grandma has given up in the past. Of course, before stating this, she wanted reassurance that it was still winter during Lent. "Why do you want to know if it will still be winter?" "Because we don't really eat ice cream during winter." Hmmm. It is amazing how quickly that little mind works. We talked about it and decided that it might be better to do something that will bring us closer to God during Lent - spending some time each day praying together and chanting one of the daily offices.
So far, so good. It has been a while since we had sung Compline together and it is nice to get it back into our bedtime routine. Sabina has been impressing me both with her chanting and her ability to repeat the entire psalter line by line (and there are some long lines in there). It won't be long before she has this service memorized and we can do the responses without coaching!
This article from the Sojourner's blog was highlighted in the sermon I heard Ash Wednesday and I thought it might be of interest to others...
Comments
LiZ Richards February 21, 2010 | 05:09 PM
I had a Shakespeare professor who insisted that we memorize long passages. He advocated for this memorization because he had once spent a long and worrying night waiting at the hospital, and the only thing keeping him sane was the sonnets he was silently running through in his head. This is one of the reasons I appreciate the prayers and psalms I have memorized: they are comforting to have at hand. I imagine that Sabina will feel the same about knowing Compline by heart.
I love both this post, Stephanie, and your response, LiZ; I was just having a conversation with my mom this weekend about the amazing ways that lines of poems we've memorized come into our minds in unexpected situations. Thank you for continuing to share these moments with us, Stephanie-- what miraculous little beings you and Keith are raising!