Does prayer change things? Or us? Or both?

The hallway signboard at my church caught my eye last week. It was listing the events and worship services for the day, including "Holy Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes." It was Ash Wednesday, as you might have guessed. And it was the word imposition that most struck me.

The word hit me not only in the simple, descriptive sense—wherein the ashes are marked (that is, imposed) by the minister with the thumb on the forehead, in the sign of the cross. For I also thought of the word in the negative, worst sense: As in when we say to someone, while we fume, "That’s an imposition on me."

It got me thinking about spiritual disciplines, which we Episcopalians and other liturgical Christians try to practice during this season of preparation for Easter we call Lent. And it got me thinking about disciplines in general—practices that strengthen our will and resolve. We may think of them as uncomfortable impositions—as something pushed on us, something we secretly resent, something that crimps or even cramps our freedom. And our wider culture usually reinforces that discomfort, seeing a constraint on personal freedom and individual expression as suspect.

Part of me feels that sometimes, too, the part that doesn’t want anyone or any tradition shaping my choices or guiding my steps. I prefer extravagant autonomy.

And sometimes, to be sure, disciplines are laid on with a heavy hand. It’s possible, as pastor and author Richard Foster suggests in Celebration of Discipline, to see (and practice) disciplines as "some dull drudgery aimed at exterminating laughter from the face of the earth."

But I also think of the possibilities. I think of how I need patterns that come from beyond my limited repertoire of small choices and automatic reactions. "Lent is strangely one of my favorite times of year," a friend and colleague tells me, precisely because of its accent on discipline and growth. Because it calls from him something from beyond himself, and calls him to something higher, and calls for change. Just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean it’s not vital or valuable.

Disciplines are, after all, as Foster goes on to say, "liberation from the stifling slavery to self-interest and fear." That means they hold promise. They suggest patterns that lead us to transformed possibilities.

And the wonderful news about spiritual disciplines is that they are not merely legal dictates. They happen in an atmosphere of relationship, even intimacy. As my new friend Stephen Purcell puts it in his book, Even Among These Rocks, "It is the nature of [Christ’s] grace not merely to call us from the outside, but actually to draw us from within." There is something within us that actually longs to respond to that gracious invitation.

So what seems like an imposition—whether gritty ashes streaked on my forehead or some new spiritual practice I take on for this season—can draw me out, can give me new freedom, even joy.