Lent begins on Wednesday March 5th. There's evidence that Christians have observed Lent for at least 1500 years, and it's thought the practice probably dates right back to the early Church. Keeping Lent keeps us in continuity with the tradition, but as with all elements of tradition, the tradition constantly morphs and develops. We could, I suppose, stage a historical reconstruction of a 15th century Lent and have an entire village give up all animal and dairy products, have a huge Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Pancake Day/Fat Tuesday the night before Lent, and then survive on withered winter vegetables and winter cabbages for the duration. But historical reconstruction is not the same thing as tradition.
But there is one element of the tradition that I think we would benefit from reviving, and that is the community aspect. If people keep Lent at all these days, it's largely individual choices (giving up chocolate, or perhaps the recent trend for taking up something). It varies from person to person how directly connected personal observance is with the Lenten observance of the Church community. But a medieval Lent, with everyone observing the same customs, had a community feel to it. Not the warm, fuzzy, romanticised community you see in costume dramas, which is largely fiction, but a community in the sense of a committed belonging. The meanings of Lent are mostly not individualised, but about our relationship to God, the world, and one another.
Lent has many meanings threaded together - there is always time to reflect on Jesus' temptations, which give us a mirror image of (and opposite outcome to) the temptations in the Genesis 3 "Fall" story, an insight into the humanity of Jesus, and an opportunity to remember that Lent is partly about rediscovering our absolute dependency on God. The journey to Jerusalem is another Lenten theme; yet another is the moments of mini-feast that break the fast and anticipate the coming Easter story.
Lent is rich in imagery, then, but the question remains how to observe it in the 21st Century. Here are 40 ideas on how to keep Lent. - individual and group practices, including ecological, literary, social justice and community building habits that you might just want to continue with after Lent is over.