A Lenten Spiritual Journey, Regardless of Your Faith

Lent, the forty days leading toward Easter, is a sacred season of reflection for many Christians as they remember Christ retreating into solitude for forty days and forty nights where he resisted temptation and stood true to his connection to Truth and Light.

What is your truth? What, in your life, is tempting you? What is pulling you away from joy and light in your life?

Christ sacrificed his own popularity and acceptance by continuing to spread his teachings, which eventually ended in the ultimate sacrifice of his own life upon the cross.

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” ~Mahatma Gandhi on Jesus Christ

Many spiritual leaders walk the path of Salvation through Sacrifice. The Buddha abandoned his family to find his Truth. During the process, he too, avoided temptation of evil but through the demon, Mara. To find spiritual truth, the Buddha detached from all material wealth and attachments including comfort, food, family and most human contact. He fasted and sacrificed these luxuries, not to bring pain upon his earthly body but to move away from the greater pain of attachment to the material world.

“The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy. The Buddha gave up the pleasures of life because they had become painful to him.”

In both examples, Jesus and Buddha went off into solitude to find their path to spiritual enlightenment. We are unable to connect to our Source without the silent solitude necessary to feed our souls. We need time alone, time to meditate, time to reflect and time to feel God or our Inner Light.

When do you find quiet time for yourself? Have you made it a priority to give yourself and those you love this sacrificial gift? When we take the time to care for ourselves, we are more able to care for those we love.

Regardless of your own spiritual or religious beliefs, this time leading up to Spring is a good time to consider your relationship to ‘things’ and emotions that are no longer serving you.

What are your attachments in this life? Can you let go?

During Lent, we often hear of individuals ‘giving up’ worldly things such as television watching, chocolate or bad habits. And while these are all good tests of our will and free us to focus on more spiritual work and healthy lifestyle, we should also include a Lenten sacrifice that can be looked upon as more of an act of service, or joyful giving.

This Lent, we can be aware of the hold material things have on us. Many of the comforts in life can consume us and keep us trapped, away from the true beauty of simplicity. These forty days and nights, we can work toward freeing our spirits from attachment and allowing unselfish love to flow into our lives.

“To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.” ~ Buddha

We can begin simply by giving others more than we give ourselves. This type of a ‘giving sacrifice’ can be in the form of a clothing or food donation, volunteering in our community or just simply turning off the computer or television and being present with our families. It is impossible for us to truly be with our loved ones or even hear the silence and be alone if we are constantly ‘connected’ to some form of technology.

In these modern times, are we ever really alone? Aren’t we constantly connected to something or someone via text, phone, computer, television or radio? Can we sacrifice the noise in our lives to lead us toward greater spiritual truths?

Those of us who yearn to find ourselves more deeply must first allow ourselves to be alone, free from material attachments and constant connections. At first it can be uncomfortable to be alone or sit in silence – but it is essential to our spiritual growth and physical health. Meditation and prayer are wonderful tools and especially fitting during Lent. You may also consider journaling each day of Lent as part of your Lenten ‘sacrifice’.

“The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are.Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.” ~Mother Teresa

While the depth and meaning of this sacred time is not something we bring to the children with our words, the reverence we show in our homes this Lent will absolutely feed their souls. In addition, the sacrifice (or gift) of silent reflection and simplicity frees us to truly ‘be’ with the children each day… loving, eating, playing, learning, warming and sleeping.

What more do any of us truly need?

Restore Workshop *Giveaway* for Lent with Elizabeth Foss!

A beautiful online friend of mine, Elizabeth Foss from In the Heart of my Home, has teamed up with Joy Messimer to offer a wonderful Restore Workshop during Lent.

Elizabeth is a Catholic homeschooling mother, blogger and author who's light shines through cyberland to many of us through her blog.  This course is designed for women of all faiths and denominations who have struggled with burnout and want to restore their souls during Lent.

We are so excited that Elizabeth will be offering one Little Acorn Learning reader a FREE spot in this amazing six week program (a $65 value!).  We know so many of you are busy mothers working so very hard to provide your children with a beautiful childhood.  You deserve to give yourself the gift of self-care.

In order to enter to win a space in this class for FREE, please leave a comment on this post telling us your name, location and what you are struggling with the most at this time in your life or what you hope to get from the workshop.

We will then choose a random winner on March 15th (a day before the workshop begins) and announce it here on our blog.

Best of luck to you all!
xoxo

What is the Restore Workshop?

The Restore Workshop is a six week online course geared towards adult women who have struggled or are struggling with or want to avoid burnout. It is for any woman who wants to nurture joy within her life and the lives of those around her. 

What content can I expect?

Each week is full to the brim with helps and tools. In Week 5, which falls during Holy Week, there will only be quiet time meditations each day.  There is a daily quiet time encouragement each day of the workshop, seven days a week. Each week has one podcast with writers and mothers who have struggled with burnout themselves. Elizabeth shares three in-depth essays per week, exploring the tools we must use to restore ourselves to His vision of us. Also included in each week’s content is a tutorial for creating something related to the topic of the week, something to lift your spirits and invite beauty into your lives.  Along the way, we hope you will be delighted by special gifts from our hearts to yours, like a place to journal and beautiful quote and verse printables to print out and hang. Perhaps most importantly, you will have a chance to converse and talk with your fellow participants, and with Elizabeth throughout the course, in a private, encouraging, and restful place, learning from and sharing your journey with others. 

Lenten Pondering

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

~ Mother Teresa

Pretzels for Lent

For many, Lent is a time of waiting and reflection. It is a time to ponder the word sacrifice and what it means in your life. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs or religious background, the weeks leading up to Spring can be a wonderful time of self-reflection, practicing detachment from things and letting go of old habits and beliefs that no longer suit you. When we think of sacrificing or giving something up during this time, it is important to remember that it should be a giving-up of something that has become a negative in your life. Real sacrifice during this time should give you peace and joy in return.

The girls and I follow the age old tradition of making pretzels. The pretzel has been made for over a thousand years during this time of Lent and it is thought that the shaping of the pretzel is supposed to symbolize arms being folded in prayer.

"Pretzels had their beginning around 610 A.D. somewhere in Southern France or Northern Italy. A young monk was preparing unleavened bread for Lent, the Christian period of fasting and penitence before Easter. Christians of the day prayed with their arms folded across their chests, each hand on the opposite shoulder...

It occurred to him that he could twist the leftover dough from the bread into this shape and use it as a treat for the children to recite their prayers. He named his creation 'pretiola', Latin for 'little reward'.

In the centuries following, the pretzel made its way into history books and European culture. The pretzel's form became a symbol of good luck, long life and prosperity.

Historians believe, although cannot authenticate, that the pretzel came to America by way of the Mayflower in 1620. There are stories of early settlers selling the treat to Indians, who would pay any price for them." from Snyder's of Hanover's website

Our little pretzels take many different shapes and symbols...

Mine was created from the old Celtic Trinity Symbol which can mean Spirit, Mind and Body or Father, Son and Holy Ghost among other things.

Maia created a Peace Sign :) and Brianna created the Snail which is her special symbol in her Waldorf Kindergarten.

Here is a piece I wrote for Rhythm of the Home on this time of Lent and how you can apply aspects of it to your life regardless of your religious background.

What will you let go of during this time leading into Spring?

A Lenten Spiritual Journey

Head on over to Rhythm of the Home's Spring edition to read my piece on Lent which begins today.