Lent

[lnr]

So tonight I am making pancakes (yay!), and tomorrow is Lent. I'm not a Christian, but I do often give things up for Lent, which some may find strange. I suppose partly it's growing up with Christian traditions and wanting to keep them, and partly just because I find it a useful discipline. And it's a good time to give something up: just long enough to be a challenge but short enough that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, which makes it easier to stick to. I'd never even heard of the concept of feast days and Sundays not counting as part of Lent itself until very recently, despite it being originally something I learned through school and sunday school, so I've always given things up straight through from Ash Wednesday until the morning of Easter Sunday. I was considering giving up either alcohol or chocolate for Lent this year, but I have not one but two nice dinners out this weekend, and my sister's birthday the following weekend, and an entire box of chocolates just arrived at home. So should I even bother? I'm already counting calories which cuts back on overindulgence somewhat. Any suggestions?

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Give up caffeine?!

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

As an alternative suggestion? Because there's caffeine in chocolate.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

As an extreme alternative suggestion. Although if you did, as you say, you'd have to give up chocolate too.

(I gave up both at the start of lent last year and haven't started again!)

[keirf.livejournal.com]

an entire box of chocolates just arrived

Doesn't that just add to the challege? Otherwise you might as well give up "travelling to Nepal" or "eating live slugs" for Lent.

[lnr]

Well, I could scoff them all tonight, but I was intending to share them with friends tomorrow. I doubt their best-before is after Easter.

Normally I do indeed give up something which is part of my everyday life, or as indeed there's no point. I've a house full of crisps too and biscuits, which I could give up instead. And indeed that would possibly make more sense.

Funny. I feeling really shit now for caring about a bloody box of chocolates I spent too much money on.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

There are few things in my life that stir up my possessive nature like nice chocolates...

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Ack. I wasn't trying to make you feel bad.

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

The Eastern Orthodox Churches will observe Great Lent from Monday 14 March until Friday 22 April this year, perhaps that fits in better with your social calendar?

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Have you considered taking something on instead? Extra money to charity, for example, benefits someone else and probably also causes you to cut down because you're using money that you miht otherwise have sed on self-indulgence.

Well, it's sugar for sugar / And salt for salt

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Hmm. One year, I gave up salt for lent - both for cooking with, and adding to cooked food in my plate. Mainly in the attempt to make me think more about what I was eating. As such, it really worked, and it also cut down the amount of salt I've used since - I still don't add salt when I'm cooking.

[There's very little danger of not getting enough salt, before anyone suggests this]

Re: Well, it's sugar for sugar / And salt for salt

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Did you make a special effort to not eat foods that had any/were high in sugar/salt? So many things are packed with both that I doubt what I add makes much impact

Re: Well, it's sugar for sugar / And salt for salt

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did try to avoid procesed foods. But I did have the odd bit of bacon... And I was also a student at the time, so the odd kebab and the like did get eaten,

For the first week or two, it really had an effect on the enjoyment of my food; it all felt pretty tasteless, but late on in the third week, flavour started to come back, and by the end of Lent, I found that going back to the amount of salt I had previously used made the food inedible!

All in all, it was an interesting, though provoking, and healthy, biot of discipline in my otherwise chaotic life.

[k425.livejournal.com]

http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/worship/resources/lent/index.htm

Has various ideas for raising cash rather than giving stuff up over lent. In fact, I've just printed out the calendar for adults, so I can do it myself.

"Give 10p for each mobile phone and 25p for each computer in your house" (Tue 22 Feb) could be expensive around here...

My money comes and goes

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Give 10p for each mobile phone and 25p for each computer in your house

Er... define "computer"...

Re: My money comes and goes

[keirf.livejournal.com]

One who computes?

Re: My money comes and goes

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

(Obs.)

[lnr]

Well, I don't believe in giving to religious charities normally, but it's an interesting thought.

Have decided. Will open the nice chocs tonight and share with the pancake eaters, then take the rest out to dinner tomorrow and make the people there finish them off.

[k425.livejournal.com]

You don't need to give it to a religious charity, though. Use their ideas to raise the money, give it to any charity you fancy. Something that sorts out water for communities that need it's where I'm going I think.

Enjoy your chocs.

[rmc28]

That is a lovely idea: I hadn't come up with something I could give up over Lent that I'm not already working on. I've just printed the adults' version too.

[k425.livejournal.com]

I decided that active giving was more important to me than passive, since giving up doesn't help anyone else really.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

I'd never even heard of the concept of feast days and Sundays not counting as part of Lent itself until very recently, despite it being originally something I learned through school and sunday school, so I've always given things up straight through from Ash Wednesday until the morning of Easter Sunday.

*boggle* So you're allowed to cheat and not do 40 days? Presumably the theological basis is that Jesus nipped out of the desert once a week for a quick sandwich....

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

The idea is that feast days and sundays are special celebratory days, and that it's hard to celebrate if you're fasting.

Personally, I don't go much for that, but do take laetare sunday (Mothers' day) as a hlfway rest point (the idea there being that the whole forty days in one go gets a bit grinding, and one begins to forget the reasons for fasting, and merely concentrate on the fasting)

[lnr]

Actually if you count it you realise that if you include all the Sundays in Lent it adds up to more than 40 days anyway.

[tlingel.livejournal.com]

IIRC Lent actually ends on Palm Sunday (the entry into Jerusalem), not Easter Sunday.

[besskeloid.livejournal.com]

Give up abstinence. It can't be good for you.