Lent day 47-48: Easter!

48 comics later, I have concluded my Lent project for 2022. After making a series of comics on the Stations of the Cross and dealing with my dad's death last year, it felt like a good idea to take a step back and make something that is more of a contemplation of life rather than death. It seemed fun to take on a paradoxical prayer journey through Lent this year because everything has been so heavy for the last few years. Everything still is heavy. 

I have to get out of the survival, trudging mode and accept that this is what life is, and there has to be a better way to bear these burdens than solemnity or self-gratification or apathy. 

Something that has been monumental this season for me has been Robert Ellsberg's "The Saints' Guide to Happiness". I led my students through it during Spiritual Formation. It is an exploration of how traditional Saints such as St. Antony, St. Francis of Assisi, or St. Teresa of Avila as well as more contemporary saints such as Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, or Flannery O'Connor navigated life, work, suffering, or death to find joy, peace, and purpose in God. Sounds very mystical, and that is a part of it, but what Ellsberg has created is very thoughtful and rather practical. 

It has helped me to cultivate some helpful habits that I think have shown fruit in these comics.