This year, I decided to consciously observe Lent – the six week (or 40 days, not including Sundays) period leading up to Easter, where historically Christians have commemorated Jesus’ 40 day fast in the desert through solemn observance.

I wouldn’t say that I’m getting more religious as I get older, but more aware of the value of traditions that help us to remember in a world that is constantly demanding our attention for the most minute or irrelevant thing. I know more about Kim and Kanye’s separation and divorce than I need to; whenever I open Twitter I feel like my head is being stuffed with other people’s opinions; I reach for my phone, my thumb already scrolling through Instagram before my brain even registers what it’s doing. So, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us, Cole Arthur Riley’s New York Times Bestseller, came at the perfect moment for me. It was time for me to, as she so eloquently writes in the book’s preface, cultivate “a sacred attention”.