Today begins Lent: to give something up or not to give something up?
The pendulum keeps swinging, doesn’t it? For a while there, fasting from something was only a Catholic thing. Then a Christian thing. Then the fasting was scorned by Christians everywhere. Shortly after that it was celebrated.
No matter what your decision, critics and enthusiasts will always take a side.
Give up chocolate or soda for forty days and you can bet that someone, somewhere will call your decision a nutritional one more than a spiritual one.
Feast on Fat Tuesday and someone will judge your unbalanced spiritual life. Add an hour of Bible study into your daily schedule and someone is sure to ask, “Why only do this during Lent? Shouldn’t you be doing that ALL THE TIME?”
Well, yeah. But what’s the point of different spiritual seasons if we don’t see them as that…as seasons?
Perhaps it’s a weakness, but all of us love seasons. We like the ebb and flow, the feast and famine, the temporary, the “this too shall pass” of anything.
Consider Advent, otherwise when we embrace two months of frenzied overspending, the same dozen songs playing everywhere you go, the same cookie recipes, and yearly traditions. We embrace all this with our stressed-out arms.
Then, on December 26, we look for the next season. What are we doing next? Resolutions? Planning our spring vacations? Valentines Day? Where is the next feast?
Feasting has its place, but what about the famine? What if the your next season wasn’t one of more, more, more but of less, less, less?
Today, Ash Wednesday, begins the less, less, less.
For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have celebrated this season of less, less, less by suffering, by denying themselves a pleasure, by focusing more on God and less on themselves.
God knows our love of seasons. He understands that ebb and flow, crest and fall, feast and famine comfort us.
God also knows how much we discover when we live with less.
What could you give up? How would focusing less on your physical self help you to focus more on your spiritual self? How would physical hunger, physical suffering, make you more aware of the same way your soul is hungry?
You could try a Facebook Fast. Every time your brain needs a status-update fix, when you have the urge to listen to your friends complain about the weather or talk about their workouts, you could listen to God instead.
You could give up the quintessential chocolate or beer or soda for 40 days. When you crave the stuff, read scripture, jot down a list of what you’re thankful for in this moment. Let yourself feel the cravings and hunger of your body. Tell your stomach to get over itself, that it’s not the boss of the whole you.
I’m giving up an hour of sleep to wake up early and work on a book I’m writing. For me, this will be a season of suffering. It will be a season of yawning, dark circles, and early bedtimes.
But this too shall pass. By Easter I’ll be ready for another season.
And then I’ll feast on sleep.
What are you giving up for Lent?
