24 Feb How am I Hugging My Cactus?

The season of Lent is a season of penitence. It a journey to a cross and a time of reflection on the brokenness of the world along one’s one’s own brokenness. While the ultimate destination of this journey is Easter, the celebration of an empty tomb, the route to get there is painful, just like hugging a cactus. Throughout the history of Lent people have engaged in different practices like giving up certain items or activities and replacing that time or energy with prayer, study, service to the community, etc. Fridays during Lent have often been days of fasting, a time of giving up certain foods life meat, or all foods. Instead one engages in certain spiritual disciplines like meditation and contemplation to gain new insight.

For the Fridays in Lent I am going to fast from food and all beverages accept water and tea and use this time to gig deeper into the Hug Your Cactus metaphor. I will be sharing some of my insights weekly on my You Tube channel. This entry is a serious of questions to consider In reflecting through these six parts, consider and reflect on how they relate to caring both for your own soul. Ask yourself, are you or should you be hugging your cactus?

When life is not working don’t give up hope

Is my life, or a part of my life not working due to a self-imposed crisis?

Do I have hope that these parts of my life can get better in the future?

Do I need to lean into the transformative power of hopelessness and despair for a season?

Find a faith rooted in forgiveness

Does my faith at its core promote and encourage forgiveness?

Am I able to give and receive forgiveness, especially towards myself?

Take personal responsibility for wrong doings

Am I admitting and seeking forgiveness for my behaviors that have caused harm to others?

Do I want to change these harmful behaviors and patterns of behavior?

Embrace the ugly parts of your soul

Am I aware of the underlying brokenness, ego, and false sense of self that is the source of these harmful behaviors?

Am I willing to “die to” this part of ego/self, reining it in to limit the damage it causes?

Can I accept and even love this part of self, as it is not going away; instead learn to integrate it into a more holistic sense of self?  

Do this long enough and gain some humility 

Am I willing to commit to the amount of time needed for true humility (life not about me)?

Am I seeking the appropriate help needed: counseling, 12 Steps, spiritual direction, etc.?

Will I engage in the hard soul work of spiritual disciplines like prayer, meditation, and contemplation as part of this process?

Life will then take on a new meaning

Do I really want my life to be different, to have a new and different sense of meaning?

Am I willing to use what I learn through this journey to help others?

I hope reflecting on these questions will help give a sense of direction and purpose to your personal reflections this Lent. I have updates some resources on the resource page of this site to help with the process.

Look forward to coming back next week with another Hug Your Cactus reflection.

A YouTube video with similar content presented in a different format can be found here: