This year Lent begins in the middle of February. It’s a fitting partnership - February stripped and bare, Lent the time for some stripping and bareness in church and in our lives.

This is not about giving up bad things but good things, the good things God gives us to enjoy and to thank him for as we live in the world he has made.

These good things heed our attention, and often they take our attention off God himself. So we have the custom of going without one (or more) of them during Lent, and so switching our attention away from it on to God. Less time for snooker, more time for God.

I love reading fiction, and thank God for the authors and their books; so I might give up fiction in Lent, and give more time attending to God (he is more wonderful than any of his gifts). I enjoy a cup of tea in bed before getting up in the morning; I might leave it out and enjoy thinking about God’s goodness. I may then see God and the world in better proportion.

It’s not the only special exercise for Lent, but it’s a good one. In February the leaves are off the trees, and we see the trees themselves.