"The Voices of Lent that spoke to me"

THE VOICES OF LENT THAT SPOKE TO ME.

(AN ALPHABETIZED LIST OF ALL THE  PEOPLE 

WHO HAVE SHARED AUTHENTIC LENT WITH ME) 

I did it.  I finally got this blog organized so I can find what I wrote.  

Two years ago, I was inspired to join Pete Rollin's Atheism for Lent Course.  In 2022, I still was uncomfortable with the term "Atheist" as a descriptor, even though, I had tossed out most of my religious tapestries by then.  I wanted to expose myself to the great thinkers of the past that would maybe encourage me to discover a different perspective on life.  

When I peruse the first year of blog posts from 2022, I can see my resistance toward the whole atheist label and atheist viewpoint.  I was still trying to hang on to "Creator" even through  the "God" ship had already sailed for me.  I find vestiges of my struggle in those forty-five days of Lent that year.  There were some great voices that Pete introduced us to, like Jean Meslier, Robert Ingersoll, Marguerite Porte and Emma Goldman.  I learned and thought a lot during Lent 2022 thanks to these voices. 

Good Friday of  2022 was the day I "buried Jesus".  I needed it to be more of a death than a divorce then.  I needed to acknowledge that Jesus was alive for me for so many years, and now he was dead.  Even though, as the story goes,  he died 2000 years ago, I still needed to give him a funeral of sorts to lay that part of my life down.  I had a wooden cross formed with the name Jesus that my sister got me when she was in Guatemala.  Instead of throwing it away or giving it away like I did with other crosses in my house, I wrapped it in cheese cloth and buried it under my lilac bush.  I put a stone on top of it and that is where it lays to this day.  It is a reminder that what I had once had indeed been alive, if only in my mind.  (Easter came and went, and I didn't bring him back to life.  Boy,  that felt real instead of a fabricated ritual.) 

When Lent came around in 2023, I signed up again.  Pete Rollins had revamped the course and had entirely new material.  I figured maybe it would be a different experience (post a living Jesus)  and still worth investing in.  It was still challenging for me, and there are posts that remind me that it was almost a wash for me, but I hung in there and was introduced to some more voices that were helpful for my journey.  

Lent 2024 was a different experience again for me.  I went solo this time without Pete and Community to walk with me.  But this time, I got to choose the voices that I would listen to.  This time they were not whispering to me from the grave,  as had been for the most part in the last two years, but this time, I wanted living voices to teach and inspire me.  Lent started on Valentine's Day ended on my Birthday.  It was the best year yet.  

I want to continue with Authentic Lent and I hope as long as I do this blog that I can find different voices to walk along the journey with me.  Maybe there will be a different focus yet again.  I don't know what 2025 will bring me in the way of blog fodder.  But I am looking forward to it.  

For now, I want to have an ordered access to the last three years of great wisdom and inspiring videos.  I made an alphabetical list of all the blog entries that is available in the "Authentic Lent Index" in the sidebar of the blog.  There may only be a quote or smaller reference in a post, but I still wanted to give the voices credit for showing up where they do.  Some days it was just me rambling, so I put those posts at the end.  But for the most part, Authentic Lent has been about inviting other voices to walk me through forty-five days of authenticity and secular wisdom.