LENT 2019

Here we are again, our figurative foreheads emblazoned with powdered ashes. Ash Wednesday - not a holy day on the calendar of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where I hang my shroud of faith. Nonetheless, it is a Catholic holy day, and our family has Catholic roots. For the last decade or so I have dedicated a portion of each day during the 40+ days of Lent to exercising my writing skills and at the same time attempting to preserve personal memories as a sort of chaotic personal history. My ADD issues make me more of a Readers Digest type person, as opposed to a Michener novel. There is no chronology. But if you want to know who I am as a person, quirks and all, then this is will do the job. I publish my short writing on this blog because it requires accountability of me, and it preserves the writings in an accessible place should anything cause an untimely demise for my body.

I began this Lent writing exercise as a Word of the Day adventure. I chose random words from an online generator as a jumping-off place. You'd be surprised how simple words can conjure up images and tastes and aromas and memories. There are a lot of random words in my life story. I've also written the back stories to many of my songs. And a few years ago I recorded favorite recipes. I still refer to those recipes through this blog regularly. Its really quite handy, even easier than going into the study and finding my cookbook. I just Google: "Cori Connors- Chicken Breasts in Lemon Cream" and up it comes, with a little back story as well. Pretty darn handy.

This year I have decided to return to the roots of my writing, Word of the Day. I literally pull up a Random Word Generator from the Internet and usually have ten words from which I choose one that catches my fancy. Sometimes its religious, sometimes not. I am trying this year to make my writing shorter. Originally, Word of the Day writing was a ten minute exercise, up to 1/2 hour, but I had let it get a little out of hand for me, and the essays became long and unruly. So, I am trying to reign it in, to keep the actual writing to less than an hour, with an additional chunk of time to add photos and format for the blog. It takes a healthy portion of every day every spring. But in the end, it's my journal. If you choose to take a peek, that's fine - Welcome.

The ashes used for Ash Wednesday are created by burning the palm leaves from the previous year.
Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter and recollects the day the Savior entered Jerusalem for the last time.
The people waved palm leaves before him as he entered  on a white horse, representing that they
recognized his royal heritage. Lent is the season between Ash Wednesday and Easter,
 deservedly known as the holiest of holy days. 

I love holidays in that they remind us to return to our spiritual roots.