To begin Lent, skip the Internet for a day. Turn off notifications on your phone. Notice how it feels. 

Unfollow or mute 5 social media accounts that make you feel angry, afraid, envious. 

Limit social media for Lent.

Think about what you tend to spend money on. Do you buy too many clothes? Spend too much on dinner out? Pick one type of expenditure you’ll “fast” from during Lent, and give the money you would usually spend to a local charity.

Try 40 days of letter writing, 40 acts of kindness, 40 phone calls to significant people in your life…

Try a new spiritual practice/discipline.

Places to start: 

• • Develop a Rule of Life. 

  • Article on Spiritual Disciplines from Soul Shepherding

  • Article on Spiritual Disciplines from Renovare

  • Teresa Blythe’s book “50 Ways to Pray” (a large preview is available)

  • Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline" (at least two PDF study guides are available online for free)

  • Adele Calhoun's "Spiritual Disciplines Handbook"

Start a Lent book club or join something Nexus has going -- CAYA, Now What, Brown Bag Lunch, Evensong … 

Make a commitment to fast from gossip and insensitive, cruel comments about others (and yourself).

Sign up for a silent retreat (Crieff, Loyola House...)

Set a new habit: when you first sit down in front of your computer at work, or at the very end of your workday, try a 10-minute guided prayer from Sacred Space based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius.

Look at your bookshelves and ask yourself: where are the women? the people of colour? disabled voices? LGBTQ+ voices? the ones who come from a different tradition? Ask yourself, “Who is forming my spiritual life? Whose voices are missing?” Consider how to respond to what you notice as your practice over Lent.

Think of five people who inspire you or others on social media. Amplify their voices, buy their books, or share their work with a friend. Send them an encouraging note about what they mean to you.

Think about a habit that has kept you from being who God is calling you to be. Speak words of forgiveness out loud to yourself for that thing you’ve been holding onto for too long. What would happen if you loosened your grip on it? Consider consciously giving it up for Lent. 

Meditate using the Virtual Stations of the Cross from Busted Halo.