Sunday, February 7, 2016

UU Lent 2016 - Intro

This is year 3 of the unofficial* UU Lent online practice founded by Barb Greve and Karen Bellevance-Grace. I attempted to do this last year but didn't quite make it through. So I'm trying again.

Lent is a Christian holiday starting on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday. This period of time is fairly close to the Pagan Imbolc (Feb 3/4) through Ostara (March 20/21). Practitioners usually give up some "vice" (smoking, drinking, eating meat, sex) as some kind of penance. Although the Unitarian Universalist religion has its roots in Christianity (Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1965), most UUs do not consider themselves Christian; we modify our UUness with Pagan, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, Jewish, etc. What makes the UU Lent different from traditional Lent is that we're not asked to give up anything. Instead, we are to reflect on the keyword of the day in anyway we see fit. So no matter what flavor of UU your are, you can participate. Here is the original Facebook link for this year.

Take a picture about what the keyword means to you, write something about it, and use #UULent on social media so that we can find each other.

I may do some retroactive posts to make a "Pagan Lent" season. As such, my posts for this practice will end on Ostara / Spring Equinox.

*I compare this practice to Chalica, another unofficial UU holiday, in that UUs are not required to observe. Actually UUs aren't required to observe any holidays. We're not going to suffer eternal damnation if we don't or get more heaven points if we do.

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