Lose it to find it
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
The life to be lost is not your personhood but the small, anxious, defended self: the one that manages impressions and counts grievances and reaches for the next meal before the last one is finished. That self is exhausting to maintain, and Jesus is not asking you to suffer for its own sake. He is offering to take a burden. Thirty-three days of small no's, to food and the phone and the reactive word, and you have found, again and again, that you survive the no. What is found on the other side is a life that was underneath the whole time.
Today's practice
Choose one small want today and refuse it, kindly, on purpose. Notice you are still here after. Notice who is noticing.
The fast
Daily fast, Daniel table. Eat well after the long fast; the body has done real work.
By the calendar, today is Day ?.