LENTEN SPRINGTIME AND 4,000 RAINDROPS

(photo from Gwinnettmagazine.com)

"LENT IS A GIFT! Lent is a gift from God to us, a gift which is admirable, marvelous, one that we desire. 

Now a gift of what? I would say that it is a gift of the essential – that which is essential and yet which suffers most in our life because we are living lives of confusion and fragmentation, lives which constantly conceal from us the eternal, the glorious, the divine meaning of life and take away from us that which should “push” and, thus, correct and fill our life with joy. 

And this essential is thanksgiving: the acceptance from God of that wonderful life, as St. Peter says, “…created out of nothing…,” created exclusively by the love of God, for there is no other reason for us to exist; loved by Him even before we were born, we were taken into His marvelous light. 

Now we live and we forget. When was the last time I thought about it? But I do not forget so many little things and affairs that transform my whole life into empty noise, into a kind of traveling without knowing where.  
Lent returns to me, gives back to me, this essential - the essential layer of life." (Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from a talk delivered on Forgiveness Sunday, March 20, 1983, at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary Chapel.  You can read the sermon in its entirety, HERE.)


BE STILL...

For Christians, Lent is a journey toward the Hope and Joy of Christ's Resurrection. It is a chance for us to slow down with our families and to focus and examine the condition of our spiritual life - which like a seedling plant, needs to be cultivated through prayer, fasting, acts of charity, and repentance.

    
The gift of Lent is that it is a time of preparation - to draw closer to God and to acknowledge that He is the reason that we exist.  We need to seize this opportunity with our children to grow spiritually, so that it doesn't become just a "what-food-are-you-giving-up-for-Lent?" experience.
 

Which brings me to "4,000 Raindrops"...a 40-day Lenten campaign that is seeking small donations from all over the world, a drop at a time, to build a new well for an orphanage for young girls in India.
  
CLICK HERE find out how you can "buy a brick" or get involved! (There are family projects and homeschool/sunday school lessons and activities about India).


WATCH 4,000 RAINDROPS (short and cute!)


Watch the LUCKY GIRLS MOVIE.  (Lucky Girls was filmed in January 2009 with the purpose of raising funds and awareness for a Greek Orthodox Orphanage near Kolkata, India.  It's a 16-minute film, exploring the plight of the young Indian girl-child and the remarkable stories and dreams of the girls from the orphanage.)