Lent!
As you know, this is when we listen to a lovely rendition of Ave Maria (as well as something somewhat less timeless) and, in recent years, discuss what we’re giving up for Lent.
Well, I’ve decided to give up carbs for Lent again, as well as putting myself on a sodium restriction (I bought 6 kinds of Mrs. Dash at the grocery store last Saturday), and, on top of that, I’m giving up booze (outside of cooking with it) but since the doctor pretty much told me “lose weight, go on a salt restriction, oh, and take this medication that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol”, I admit that, yeah, I’m kind of cheating and that goes against what we’re kind of trying to go for here.
But I’ve already put on the calendar for April 16, IN PEN, “Breakfast Buffet at Hotel Elegante“.
In an effort to not totally be cheating, I’m going to give up buying vidja games for Lent. Again.
Right after taking Maribou out on a date to a little place in Old Colorado City that makes really, really awesome pancakes.
So… what are you giving up for Lent?
(And I need another “Oh, I remember that song!” song for the post… here’s one.)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLOjmY–TA
I dunno. In my faith tradition it’s more common to take on something “beneficial” (service or prayer or the like) than to give up, but I’ve already started sharply cutting sweet and carbohydrate consumption (to lose weight, and hopefully so my bloodwork later this month will be good). So maybe I go with that.
In past years I tried giving up getting irritated at the little things (like when someone ahead of you in the checkout line has a ream of coupons, argues with the checker over the price of something and THEN pulls out their checkbook and starts hunting for a pen) but I was not that successful at it.
I gave up frivolous spending for a while but I found that made my general attitude worse, so….I’m not sure the aim of this is for me to be grumpy and cranky. (Then again: the “giving up frivolous spending” was not for a limited time, it was “until the budget retrenchment here ends” which is probably “never,” so)
Yeah: giving up sweets is easier for me than giving up the occasional purchase of a yard of fabric or a book. So I’m going with that.Report
alcohol and any sort of candy/cookie/sweet as a dessert or a snack. Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast on a weekend morning are ok because that’s a main course. (just munching on chocolate chips straight out of the bag is not)Report
One of the little things I do is change how I prepare my coffee (think no sugar or no cream)… its a little bit different than giving up something (which you can train yourself to ignore or substitute) in that you have a small constant reminder of the season. Which reminds me to change my avatar… Lent Trumps Trump.Report
Heh… just got this meme over the Catholic intertubes
If it’s old, I’ve never seen it… so its new to me.Report
“Additions” or “addictions”?
“Subtractions” would work.Report
Ooops. Makes it sound like a parenting fetish. So, maybe a good addiction to give up.Report
The little things. Yes. This post ended up in the OT category “Mindless Diversions”, but I think “mindful diversions” is a really good description of Lenten sacrifices.Report
In the past I said that I’m a non practicing atheist. I guess to unpack that a little bit is to say that my religious beliefs reside in individual constructs. I don’t go out trying to save/convert people, I don’t really speak at length about religion unless someone interesting asks me more than a couple questions.
Lent is one of those things I never developed as a individual construct. It has always been something important to other people and something other people do.
I am a bit curious why other people have made it a construct. Is it something the family did. Is it something they learned in church. Is it something they picked up from reading a book, that they personally internalized.
So I ask the people who made it their own. How did it become important to you?Report
The first inkling I ever had that Lent might be worth doing was the first time (nowhere near around Ash Wednesday) that I went on Induction for the South Beach diet.
Two weeks of bacon, eggs, spinach, steak, chicken breasts, and cheese.
On the 15th day, I had a small handful of blueberries.
They were the sweetest berries I have ever tasted and I remember that first berry breaking against my teeth with fondness even today.Report
A good experience can imprint strongly, thanks for sharing.Report
It allows you to hit the reset button on and take another crack at your New Year’s Resolutions.Report
I don’t do much, so I don’t have anything really to give up these days. I’m already on a diet. If Lent fell in football season, that’d be a good choice, but that doesn’t happen. Maybe I should give up arena football? That’s just a formalization of a decision that I made long ago.
This Lent I’ll be working my way through St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue. I anticipate slow progress. Like, slow. I’d rather read the first 20 pages over 40 days than finish a book without ever having “gotten” it.Report
Lent? Isn’t that what the library did?
I kid, but, not being a catholic, I am not sure on this whole thing. I quite smoking, that was easy but took a long time, I could give up drinking, but at one beer or so a week, not sure what that accomplishes. Lets see, reading, no too fundimental and not really a sin. That is what this is about, right? Still not sure…
How about work? That do you? Now, as long as I don’t tell my wife, I am cool.Report
Not about sin at all.
It’s about the various pleasures that one has allowed to transmogrify into obligations and this is an attempt to put these back in their proper role in our lives.Report
(was really hoping that you would agree that work is a sin…Report
That’s between you and whomever signs your checks.Report
That depends on what you do for a living.Report
I see it as reminding myself that the things of this world don’t have control over me.
(Also, I really do need to drop at least 10 pounds….stress eating since last fall).
I know the original tradition was “offering up” your suffering as some kind of sacrifice, but I like better to think of it as “no, this thing is not really that important to me, I can put it aside for 40 days.” (And unlike a friend of mine, I’m not going to cheat and say “But Sundays aren’t part of Lent” – they aren’t, but….)
I was gonna give up cussing, too, but I cleaned house today and the first time the fishing trash-can liner fell into the fishing kitchen trashcan – well, I broke that one straight off.Report
Does saying “fish” count?Report
Today and every Friday.Report
I didn’t say ‘fish’……
(heh. am now flashing back to “A Christmas Story” and how Ralphie “didn’t say fudge….”)Report
Lent is a do-it-yourself ritual law. (I’m making an assumption based on your name.) Christians believe that they’re exempt from the ritual law, but there’s a spiritual benefit in setting things aside for G-d, so we bind ourselves to something of our choosing in order to remind ourselves of the Creator.Report
That may be how Catholics view it, but they are wrong. 🙂 Voluntary sacrifice of a worldly pleasure is a reminder that the kingdom of heaven isn’t materially derived.
I mean, that’s obvious, right? 🙂Report
I was describing it for a Jewish audience. I didn’t think that “uniting your suffering with that of Christ” would resonate in quite the same way. But then again, I don’t think that we Gentiles really understand what it means to set something aside, which is the definition of “sanctification”.Report
I’m endeavoring to give up regrets for Lent, or at least the wallowing in them. I had a milestone birthday recently and it’s made me think things like this.Report
Not being a christian and I don’t give up anything, but I don’t celebrate Fat Tuesday either so…..I guess that balances out.
I didn’t realize it was ash wedneday until the the actual day and I started seeing folks with “dirt” on their foreheads….”ah yes…ash wednesday”. I did have gumbo though for dinner.Report
I’m giving up acquiring books (including the temporary acquisition known as borrowing of any kind, but not including people insisting on giving me stuff, because the latter would be rude). Which I do more years than not.
(Jaybird might have first figured out that Lent was useful when we went on the South Beach Diet, but I had been practicing both positive and negative Lenten obligations off and on for a long time before that. Cradle Catholic, college heretic, etc.)Report