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We are just about smack-dab in the middle of Lent, the period of time leading up to Easter (measured either from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday or the six weeks prior to Easter, depending on your particular flavor of Christianity). For many Christians, Lent is a time to deprive oneself to attempt to better understand the sacrifices Jesus made.
Of course -- as with many religious rites -- Lent can also be a time to "give something up because I'm supposed to," without the thought and reflection that are much more the point of the exercise than the ritual itself. I remember asking a schoolmate why she couldn't eat meat on Fridays during Lent (long ago, back before I became a Christian myself), and her response was: "That's what you do during Lent." When pressed, she offered, "Well I think Jesus really liked fish."
Oh. Okay, then.
I've given things up for Lent before. One year I gave up chocolate; another year I gave up caffeine. I'm not convinced I learned anything from those experiences (other than that I get cranky when I give things up). I remember thinking that, you know, me giving up Heath bars is probably not the same as wandering in the desert for 40 days while being plagued by the devil. I mean, I can't be sure, but I'm just saying.
This year I hadn't planned to give anything up for Lent; I've been participating in a fitness challenge since the beginning of the year that saw me make some extreme diet and lifestyle changes, and I just didn't feel moved to try to "deprive" myself this year when I've already made so many changes and am working on being more mindful, overall. But something I hadn't counted on happened this year: My daughter came home declaring she planned to give something up for Lent. Huh. Turns out that "what you're giving up for Lent" was a hot topic of conversation at the middle school lunch table.
We tried to have a discussion with her about what it means and why people do it, but she kind of brushed us off and insisted that she was giving up candy. My husband and I glanced sideways at one another and congratulated her on her resolve. And then were not even slightly surprised when she cheated. Multiple times. I tried to explain to her that no one is making her commit to Lenten deprivation, and that it's not really meaningful to just give something up for the sake of giving something up (particularly if you keep cheating, ahem), but she's not too interested in anything I have to say about it. I've stopped bringing it up. But this has really driven home the point to me that Lenten sacrifice has become secularized to where it's little more than a dare for a lot of people.
And that made me wonder if anything meaningful can come out of it.
Poking around online turned up a wide variety of interesting reading.
Chrystine of LiberatedMind.com is a self-proclaimed atheist, and gives five reasons why she believes that "Lent is Bullshit," including:
You poor martyrs! How terrible that you have to do without soda, candy, chocolate, video games, TV, etc for a WHOLE FORTY DAYS. Have you given any thought as to all those who live in abject poverty and NEVER have ANY of that stuff? How arrogant of you to think that your god will reward you for giving up such luxuries when so many starve to death every day because they have nothing to eat?
Karla Carrington at That's Fit shares that she gave up chocolate, with an unexpected result:
Only five days in and my co-workers are begging me to eat chocolate as they think I am noticeably more irritable. Between me and you, I agree. I am certain that this experience has shined a light on how heavily I rely on chocolate without even knowing it and how much I consume. Even the frequency is surprising, but I'm sticking to my commitment and have no designs of eating a morsel of chocolate until Easter. Avoiding chocolate has also sparked the urge to consume less sugar.
I also found tale after tale of folks giving up different sorts of social media for Lent, which I'm guessing is a sign of the times. Kelly at
