I have enjoyed taking pictures for my “Awe a Day” calendar this Lent. It has made me attentive to objects and views I might have missed in ordinary time. But after a few days I knew I needed some words. Maybe even one word. So the word for this Lent has been Surrender. Each day I write a new thought or idea related to surrender and spend some time thinking about the word and sitting in silence with the word. I try to listen to what God might have to say about surrender to me. After the thirty days so far, I feel “closer” to the word and less afraid of it.

This second calendar shows postures of surrender. Thinking and pondering the word surrender is easier than doing it. Placing my body in a position of surrender is hard. It’s embarrassing, even in the privacy of my own house. So I’ve been trying it. The postures are a way to practice the vulnerability of spiritual surrender. The calendar uses stick figures “après Roy DeLeon,” the author of Praying With the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life. (I think one of the reasons I like liturgical worship is because my body is invited into postures that can be seen as weak in the outside world–kneeling, opening my hands for communion….)