Running up to Ash Wednesday

I'm looking forward to Lent this year. I haven't got a particular discipline mapped out - that rarely works for me anyway - other than to spend more time kneeling. Most of my liturgical mentors favored standing over kneeling and I like to stand and pray, too. But I'm feeling a need to get on my knees this year. Perhaps by the end of Lent I will figure out why!

After several years of not having to see doctors for much more than annual checkups, I've spent the last two months visiting specialists and having elaborate, expensive tests. All of them turned out well - you might even say they were unnecessary - but I have been reminded more vividly than usual that I am mortal. It hasn't made me uncomfortable but I think that is part of wanting to return to my knees for prayer. A habit learned in childhood that brings comfort? A need to make an outward and visible sign of the inward knowledge that God is sovereign? Who knows.

If I am praying at home, being on my knees usually means having one or both dogs wanting my attention. Again, my animals are a connection for me to the Divine so being on my knees with them may be a good thing. I can't say that trying to exercise with dogs climbing over and onto me helps the exercise, though. ;-)

So I'll give it a try. Maybe I just need a change of perspective. Maybe the light is better down on my knees!