Mmmm....Chocolate

It's Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent begins, a time to rid one's house of all of those things that might temp us away from our Lenten fast. Or, for me, it's a day to eat chocolate until I throw up. OK, I've never actually thrown up on a Fat Tuesday, but I do like the excuse to eat lots of chocolate. In fact, I had it for breakfast. I had some for a snack. And I'm about to have some with (OK for) dinner. Yum! Every year for almost 15 years, now, I've given up chocolate for Lent. It turns out it's the one Lenten discipline I can actually stick with. Spiritual practices are, apparently for me, like New Year's resolutions. I always have good intentions, but my follow-through pretty much stinks. I always think this will be the year that my prayer life will improve, or that I'll actually read the daily devotionals I have for the season. I do pretty well for about a week, and then it's back to business as usual. And yes, I realize that giving up chocolate isn't exactly much of a fast, but it seems to be the one Lent-ish sort of thing that I can actually accomplish. Probably this says more about me than I actually want to contemplate. In the meantime, I need to write a sermon for tomorrow. Something about Ash Wednesday and Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and alms-giving. Probably I should be preaching this sermon more to myself than to anyone else...