Lenten sacrifices

[maru]

Lent isn't coming up for a while — Ash Wednesday is March 5 — but I've started thinking about what I want to do for it anyway.

Last year I set a fairly absolute set of prohibitions on myself:

• No alcohol
• No meat
• No caffeine (broke this one eventually)
• No social media of any kind, no group chats, just 1:1 contact

And what I notice now is just that it doesn't really serve a good purpose by itself to self-discipline, self-discipline, self-discipline. The point of Lent is not just preparation for Easter through self-denial; it's about taking the opportunity in that self-denial to return to the entire point of the faith, loving others. In a sense I find it easy to punish and restrict myself. I find serving others hard. Therefore, I think this year I'd like to be less restrictive, and more proactive.

I've thought about opening each day with the Prayer of St. Francis, cutting meat (but keeping fish), and limiting myself to one coffee per day. I'd like to make more room for direct personal contact with others and to volunteer in some capacity the entire period. With that in mind, I also think it would probably be good to limit social media again. I find myself becoming stunted as an instrument of love when I use most services — I find myself getting a bit lost in fear and self-obsessed despair, thinking about what happens to me, what could happen one day, instead of just ... focusing on what I can do here, now.

I know that last year a whole bunch of people thought about giving up something just even as a secular practice for its own sake, so I'd like to open the discussion to see if anyone's thought about it this year.

[sinku]

During Lent last year I stopped using my noise-canceling headphones. I felt I was using them to block my family out. I also felt like I was locking myself away too readily. I was told as much by one of my folks who was agitated I wasn't hearing when asked about something or not hearing any knocking on my door. So I literally wanted to keep my door open and be more talkative and reach out. I also did a little dietary restriction and fasting on designated days, no meat on fridays. With the way the year went, I don't feel like that shook out in a way that was positive, even though I guess I stopped using the headphones. I'm still disconnected, moreso I think, and worse I don't even feel like I want to connect. What better opportunity to turn that around?

For a while I've been thinking about cutting youtube during Lent, but that would just be as a way to self-discipline, same as doing maybe more intensive food restriction and fasting. But aside from these things and reading scripture, I simply have to see how things go during this month to make any other more concrete plans. Getting work or something would definitely change what I decide to do and why. Something inside stirs and wants to build and live and do something right now but it's not possible to fast-forward.

I'd like to be involved with a local church before Lent. The designs I have for the rest of the year are all about becoming proactive. But I have anxiety about directly trying to do good things instead of allowing situations to present themselves to me. Trying to wrench things in a particular direction just makes things weird. Simply getting out more and being with others would put me in way more positions to readily do something good and then just as readily forget I even did it. Direct presence in the present. I get caught up in things people say and think about the words for way too long, I think too much about the past, I dread the future or get all excited over things I imagine. Learning to let go of all that as easily as I can let go of random events on the street, conversations with strangers I'll never meet again, and having more of those sorts of random encounters I think should be the goal. Its broad, and maybe volunteering would be good for that, and an opportunity will present itself. Dunno. Just thinking myself in circles.