For the last six years, I’ve built out my collection of pocket knives. The result is an incredible set of American and Italian hand tools designed and built to perfection. Each one is unique, and most are built to last beyond my lifetime. It’s a joy to manage the collection, and select the knife that I’ll carry for the day. This Lent, I gave it up.

I picked one knife that, starting Ash Wednesday, would be the only knife I would carry. For the most part, I haven’t interacted with my collection at all. I think about the other knives three or four times throughout the day, which offers me simple reminders of the season we’re in.

Last weekend, for Laetare Sunday, our pastor had a letter in the bulletin about the significance of this mid-point. The starkness of bare altars and violet vestments give way, for a moment, to flowers and pink vestments. It’s a reminder that though we are observing the penitential season of Lent, the victory is already won. It’s also an inflection point, where we turn our gaze from the desert towards Jerusalem.

When I picked just one knife to carry, I chose one that was easy. The locking mechanism is simple to operate, the blade moves freely, and I knew I could just send it off to be sharpened when all was said and done. That note on Laetare Sunday offered me a new idea. What if it wasn’t easy?

Having no choice in my daily knife is a reminder, but what if I chose a knife that wasn’t easy to open? What if I chose one that I had to mindfully open because its mechanism was built for tolerance, not speed? What if I chose a knife that, at least until I use it much more, would be difficult to open? It’s a shift; easy to hard, Good Friday is coming.

I liked the idea of layering in one more tangible reminder, in the middle of breaking down boxes or cutting a thread off a shirt, of what I’m actually here for and what I’m working towards. Life should not be hard all the time, but choosing something slightly harder, and ignoring the path of least resistance, is a sure path to growth.