We are now all very familiar with the need to exercise daily (even if we don’t) and to eat that balanced diet which includes five vegetables a day. Over the past years our understanding of what makes a healthy person has increased greatly, and whilst there are still food fashions and fads ( I once worked with a man who insisted on eating three pounds of tomatoes a day!), it does seem that the advice we are being given will help to avoid strokes and heart attacks and the like.
But in the end, we are not immortal, so whilst we may prolong our life we will finally have to account for it. That is why Lent is such an important time. All of us need to think about our spiritual health just as much as about the health of our physical bodies. Lent provides a focus time to enable us to review who we are and what manner of life we are leading. It gives us the opportunity to say “no” to some of the things which do us harm and to find ways of living our lives more in tune with the eternal dimension. The discipline of Lent is not made up of sack cloth and ashes, but made up of a sensible and serious self examination with a view to leading a better life.
Whatever our religious beliefs (and everyone lives by some kind of faith - else we wouldn’t get up in the morning) we can all benefit from a period of reflection and reassessment.
One way of doing just that is to join us for worship in one of our churches, for that way there is the opportunity to turn away from self and look to God. You can, of course, do that anywhere and everywhere, but human nature being what it is, we actually don’t.
We look forward to seeing you.
Peter Wolfenden
Chaplain
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