catapult magazine

my flatmate just announced with great enthusiasm and display that she is giving up sugar for lent. i think the act of giving something up for lent a bit odd particularly in the case of my flatmate. she is a self-proclaimed believer in nothing, except herself, science and mankind (minor caviats). so why would she want to give something up for lent? is lent merely a pretext to make up for a lack of self-control the rest of the year mixed with severe guilt backlash? i, er, pointed this out to her in my ever tackful :D way, which for someone who claims she doesn’t offend easily she seemed … , well, it is best that she is just my flatmate for the next few months and not someone i plan to live with forever and ever.

i’m curious what other cino* folks think about people who give up something for lent but in no other way practice xnity or believe in what lent points to? do you give something up for lent or do anything behaviourally distinguishable from the rest of the year to prepare for easter? personally, i favor going through the special set of prayers for the season in my prayer book in preparation for easter; what do you do?

I’ve never given anything up for lent before, nor even considered it. However, I may this year. My roommate, a die-hard PCA Bible teacher, is giving up coffee for lent, and as i was listening to her explain her reasoning, I started to think about the potential of doing it myself. She hasn’t given anything up for several years, but she did say that giving something up for lent made Easter a lot more meaningful. So I’m not against it on principle; I understand the reluctance, given the Roman Catholic interpretation of the practice, but I think lent can be observed in a Reformed setting.

I do my own personal lents all the time. For example, I love tropicana orange juice but sometimes i deliberately buy the cheap stuff and suffer through it. it helps me appreciate tropicana in a new way. i’m convinced that to enjoy life to the fullest, you have to suffer a bit.

I don’t know if you meant it to be funny, but your comment made me laugh, Dan. Thanks!

hmm, i have to wonder about your comment too, dan. it was perhaps not outright laugh worthy but certainly worth a chuckle. thank you. you definitely have more self-control than me, cheap orange juice, blech! maybe, i’m just a hedonist, sigh, c’est l’vie.

some of you lent junkies might also want to consider giving up lent for lent.

Seriously though, I think it’s good to give stuff up. I think that giving up stuff for lent is one of those things the church got right. I see moderate self-denial as a path toward fulfullment. And as you can see by my above example, my self-denial is moderate indeed.

Lent has considerable secular appeal as an antidote to our society’s maniacal gadget-chasing tendencies and obsessive-compulsive discontentment. Here’s an article about four people who are giving up things they depend on. I’m guessing that they will report back at Easter to see how they did:

http://www.canada.com/topics//topics/lifestyle/story.html?id=569160d5-b5b2-4fed-84b7-3b5280229273&k=45086

Here’s an interesting story from NPR about a Jesuit priest who, for 20 years, has allowed his college roommate to choose what he gives for lent.

Kirstin and I have decided to give up working past 7:00 at night for lent. And while this might seem like a cop-out in favor of more relaxation, it’s really just an effort on our part to be more disciplined about our work routines. It isn’t uncommon for us to work from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed, which, of course, has proven itself unhealthy in a variety of ways.

Our housemate is giving up Lent for Lent. For those who think of Lenten discipline as acts of willpower or who are in a period of "wilderness" not of their own choosing, giving up Lent for Lent can be a very good thing.

Here’s an interesting quote from the NPR story Rob mentioned:

Lent isn’t simply about sacrifice. It is primarily a time to spiritually prepare one’s self for Easter. And this may have less to do with not doing something than with doing something. God would probably be happier not if I stopped eating candy, but if I did more work on behalf of the poor.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ways in which Lent is actually permission-granting, rather than permission-restricting. It frees us to look at ourselves with clarity and begin to understand the secondary identities that have become primary. Hence, our decision to not work after 7pm. We need to remember and then EMBODY that we are finite ("from dust you were created; to dust you shall return"), and yet eternal children of God.

Which makes me wonder: can choosing to give up coffee or chocolate or candy lead to such monumental revelations about ourselves as the time Jesus spent fasting in literal wilderness?

Of course, I always drink cheap orange juice, so maybe I just don’t get it.

I think a lot of people turn lent into a jump-start for their new diet, and that isn’t an appropriate approach to the season.

Are you giving something up for Lent?

"Lent" is a religious tradition started by the cathlic church.

It is not a biblical practice, therefore…I’m not giving up anything for lent.

Years ago, back when I used to party, I had friends that would quit smoking pot for lent, or go a day without cocaine. They were just doing the religious thing and didn’t know God at all.