How A Butterfly Guides Me: Setting off on My Lenten Journey

Since I posted yesterday about my stalled spirituality  I have come up with a simple, repeatable way to prepare for Easter. I am wary of any Lenten prayer plan that is so complex that I feel like a failure before I begin; my Lenten journey will not be a redux of Benjamin Franklin's Moral Perfection plan, his self-improvement scheme that would work for no more than a day.

Here's what I have been up to. Each night, right before I go to bed, I check out universalis.com and read the nighttime prayer on my iPad. I grab a phrase, and say it to myself as I fall asleep. In the morning, first thing, I read the morning prayer and again pick an image or phrase that I can carry with me during the day.


The phrase I chose from this morning's lauds?

Monarch of all things, fit us for your mansions....

I said that to myself all day...as I drove to work, proctored high school graduation exams, walked between classes. 

Today I imagined God as a large monarch butterfly, guiding those of us still locked in cocoons. I know the writer had a different kind of monarch in mind, but this was a lovely image to set inside my head to remind to me that the One who calls to us by name also called the whole universe into being. 

May you all have a fruitful start to your Lenten journeys. I am heading to the grocery store now to buy fixings for tonight's pancake dinner!