Hello, everyone. I hope that all of you are doing well and didn’t come to think of me as some kind of hit-and-run poster. I’ve had some other priorities arise late last year which didn’t leave me much time to spend on the Internet, so I apologize for the lack of engagement here.
I’ve been ruminating about personal sacrifice recently and began to wonder about the practice of abstinence during Lent. Those of us of the Catholic persuasion might tend to adhere to certain prescribed practices such as not eating meat on Fridays, but I am curious about others. Is there something specific you’ve chosen to give up this year? If you have, what is it and why did you choose it?
I don’t do Lent.
I recently heard a fellow Protestant in a Bible study talk about giving something trivial up for Lent as a way to identify with Christ’s sufferings. I managed to hide my face and not to snort.
Yeah, that’s pretty shallow. If the point is to identify with Christ’s sufferings, what gets given up should make a person suffer. When I was first in college I and friends fasted by having a small serving of fruit for breakfast and then just water Monday through Thursday; Friday and Saturday we allowed milk or juice to drink, and Sunday of course is in Lent but not of it. Something interesting happened, though, as far as suffering goes: after the second week, not eating was no longer painful at all – and the lack of hunger pangs made it easier to forget to spend meal time in prayer or Bible readings.
My diet is already almost 100% vegan (I use protein drinks based on milk). And because of medical reasons skipping a meal or eating less is not an option at the moment.
So I decided to don’t watch any YouTube videos. First I decided I will only watch Bible related videos. But the algorithm makes it very easy to stumble. So now no videos at all.
I really like it actually. So after Lent is over, perhaps I will only watch videos from channels I subscribed to. I also disabled YouTube on my phone. Now I have to get onto my computer to watch videos. This also helps to not open YouTube when bored and then mindlessly watch videos.
Each lent, I participate in the carbon fast, where you fast from a different emissions-intensive activity each week. This week, it happens to be fasting from meat.
I like that. I’ve taken on Dr. Michael Heiser’s series on Exodus. Just to give an idea of the care he’s taking, so far he takes around an hour and a half on each chapter!
Yes – and what I’m abstaining from is streaming movies and TV shows online.
I don’t eat enough red meat for that to be meaningful, and little enough other meat. I think my biggest emissions-intensive activity is actually my conservation work due to the need to haul supplies in my truck; in fact other than that I can’t think of anything I could cut except fresh fruit (which at this time of year tends to travel on the order of a few thousand kilometers, and I’m not sure that giving up fresh fruit is a good choice.
I gave up despairing social media posts. Not that I’m all rainbows and sunshine, but if I am inclined to respond to something with “there is no hope” than I refrain from engaging further. I figured looking toward Easter was supposed to be a hope-filled time for a Christian, so I’m trying to cut darkness and gloom and resignedness to the worst out of my diet.
That reminds me of what I gave up last year and never started again: responding to all comments on my answers posted on the site Quora. The site has become a place somewhat of “darkness and gloom and resignedness” because they have been systematically stripping away the things that provided quality, wheeling instead to clickbait.
Decided to cut down on social media, which is my only real addiction and on which I try to inject a little sense into a world increasingly dominated by “fake news” of various forms. I abstained completely on Ash Wednesday, and hope to on Good Friday, otherwise little success. My excuse is that by indulging I hope to bring a little light into a lot of darkness.
