Lent

Thursday, February 11, 2016

I took Elliott along for his first Ash Wednesday mass last night.  I haven't taken him to church in over a year, so I was expecting it to be a total disaster. However, it went surprisingly well, thanks to all the singing.  He asked for a communion wafer and clapped after all the hymns, deftly charming all the little old ladies within earshot of our pew. He did get a bit antsy after communion, so I told him we'd leave right after we got our ashes and he yelled out, while the church was perfectly silent, "OUR ASSES?!".

I'm still counting it as a success.

When I was in RCIA, our class leader told us Lent isn't so much about self-denial as it is about re-focusing our energy and time. I guess, since I like to make things difficult for myself, I can't just give up wine or sugar or cheese. That would be too easy, right?

Unsurprisingly, as of this morning, I still hadn't decided what to give up in order to make space for contemplation and reflection, and, you know, Jesus. When I got to work, I deleted all the social media apps off my phone (after sharing a Genius video breaking down "Formation"), so I guess I'll be giving up Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I got rid of all my games a couple of weeks ago when I found myself furiously switching between Candy Crush and Bubble Witch at three in the morning. So yes, giving up social media is kind of easy because, after all, we were all living just fine without it less than a decade ago; but I'm upping the difficulty level by using that freed up time not to binge watch The X-Files, but to do some mindful improvement on myself.

I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. Do blogs count as social media?

No Comments Yet, Leave Yours!