Every time a bell rings...

Today I visited my little piece of heaven in Lakeview, Chicago -- a Lutheran church that is as Zen as any I've encountered, but still uses the familiar language and music of the church I grew up in.

This morning I went with a certain amount of dread. The season of Lent is upon us, and I was in no mood to be penitent.

Lutherans aren't big on "giving up" for Lent, so I'm not too far behind the curve by not having thought about it, but I also hadn't thought about adding any spiritual discipline to the season. As the service began, I was sure it would take HOURS, maybe even DAYS to come up with just the right practice to give my spiritual life a tune-up. I should probably spend the time in a cell, maybe even fasting.

I kept thinking about how lost I was for inspiration until the meditation bell rang after the sermon.

The little girl behind me echoed its clang: "Ding-dong."

Her dad joined in quietly: "Ding-dong."

Thoroughly annoyed, I clenched my jaw, determined to have some serious prayer. "Why doesn't he tell her that in church, the bell means it's time to be quiet and pray?" I self-righteously fumed.

And then I started thinking about all the bells I hear in the course of a day:

First is the obnoxious alarm clock with its printed warning--"This alarm clock will wake you up"--meant more for my roommate two rooms away than for me, sleeping soundly.

Then there's the backup alarm, which usually goes off every 5 minutes for 30-60 minutes of my fight with wakefulness.

Then there's the "I just want to take 2 minutes to mentally create my day" timer.

Throughout the day, I use a timer to chunk my work. When it goes off, inevitably there's an expletive reflecting the amount of work I didn't get done in that 20 or 30 minutes, and an accompanying sense of dread about who will be calling to check in on this or that project.

It hit me -- why doesn't somebody tell me that the bell means it's time to be quiet and pray???

In that split second, my Lenten discipline was born.

Every time a bell rings - from here to Easter Vigil - I'll offer a prayer. More often than not, I think it will be something as simple as "Thank you," or more to the point, "Help!"

I hope that in just under 40 days, I can begin to think of the many bells I hear in a day not as an indictment for things left undone or a taunt to get up and do them, but as a connecting point with spirit and a chance to draw upon resources that are both within and beyond me.