Holy Week

Our procession of witness on Good Friday

The Paschal Candle is lit by Archdeacon Cherry at dusk on Easter Eve

Ewan is Baptised on Easter Eve

How's Your Lent Going?

It occurred to me that we don't get much chance to talk personal experiences of aspects of our faith. So here's the start of a conversation: how's your lent going?

I'll go first by sharing, in reality television style, the things that are happening in the Croft household this Lent.

We've given up telly.

For those of you who actually like reality television, particularly Big Brother, it might help to read this next paragraph in a voice that's something like Tony Ballantyne impersonating Cheryl Cole:

'Val and Steve have left the lounge to go in the dining room because Matthew wants to watch re-runs of Friends on E4'

And that simple sentence sums up one of the challenges of denying ourselves television this Lent: our house is arranged around the telly. We quickly discovered that the most comfortable places in our house are purposefully organised for television viewing, not so much Feng Shui as Feng TV. All the armchairs and sofas are organised to make sure you are all looking into one corner of the room, rather than to give each person in the room eye-contact with each other.

So, what else have we discovered on our TV-free journey, so far?

• Ordinarily we don't intelligently choose what we want to watch - we make a selection from the choices available at the time allotted for TV viewing, you know the sort of thing: you sit down at nine and see what's on, then watch something
• Evenings are longer than you think. We have more time for reading, baking, writing and talking about our day
• Actually, there is not much to miss on TV. Generally there is better quality news and comment to be read elsewhere, or listened to on the radio
• There is very good entertainment on the radio - and listening to that, or music, seems much more of a shared experience somehow

Our time of self-denial doesn't really seem that much of a trial - more of a time of relearning, re-evaluating and discovering new things about ourselves. The real test will come at the end of Lent. Will we be tempted to flop back in front of the telly on Easter Monday and watch a film we wouldn't otherwise of chosen? Hope not.

Add a comment and let us know how it's going for you.

(Image from recycling site www.treehugger.com)