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Wednesday Challenge: Personalized Lent.

Posted by John on February 21st, 2007 at 10:05 am · 8 Comments

It’s not just any Wednesday today–it’s Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent (but not the beginning of the Great Lent of the Eastern Orthodox). This Ash Wednesday Challenge will piggyback on a spiritual practice that hundreds of millions around the world are participating in today.

Lent is meant to be a contemplative time as many Christians from the liturgical traditions look forward to the death and resurrection of Christ in their ritual calendar. There is a sacrificial component: Catholics may give up anything from chocolate to impulse shopping.

Recently, Christians from less liturgical denominations are finding the idea of Lent very attractive. I’m going to hop on the bandwagon and celebrate a post-Christian, non-theist Quaker Lent. Last year I did something similar, and gave up sodas. It broke my 40-oz per day diet-Pepsi habit–now I rarely drink soft drinks.

So here’s this Wednesday’s challenge: give up something for the duration of Lent (between today and April 8th). If you’re a Christian (and not already following Lent), make a sacrifice that will help you to live a more compassionate, mystical, Christ-centered life for the next 40 days. If you’re not, give up something that will help you to live a simpler, more contemplative, more charitable life.

I am giving up meat (with the exception of fish) for the duration of Lent. My love for animal flesh is responsible for some measure of violence in this world: against animals, the environment and other humans. I’m going to take a cue from nee and try to reintroduce a meditative practice during this period. In particular, I want my sacrifice (which will be painful, I assure you) to act as a springboard for contemplating the Quaker simplicity, peace, and stewardship testimonies.

Tags: Christianity · Environment · Quakerism · Ritual · Spirituality · Weekly Challenge

8 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Zach A // Feb 21, 2007 at 11:03 am

    I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing — I think rituals speak to a certain important aspect of our humanity, but I feel a little better appropriating pagan/naturalistic rituals based on actual things (like natural cycles) than Christian ones based on ideas — solstice over Christmas, for example.

    I suppose it’s not a clean dichotomy though, since the latter are often partly based on the former.

    Anyways, you’ve emboldened me enough that I’m thinking about trying this (Lent). I suppose I should make a decision by the end of today if I want to be doing it at the same time as everyone else…

  • 2 nee // Feb 21, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    This is something I’d already been considering. I’m going to a burning bowl ceremony/ prayer & meditation service tonight (referenced here in the post and mostly comments).

    Haven’t decided what all I’ll be attempting. First is no red meat, which I’ve already cut back on this year. There will be an attitude adjustment too, still trying to best set up paramenters for what it will be. I suppose I should figure it out today.

  • 3 John // Feb 21, 2007 at 11:15 pm

    Zach, I appreciate where you’re coming from (did you know that ‘Lent’ essentially means ‘spring’?). I see the Lent-Easter cycle a powerful ancient rhythm that Christianity appropriated and used for its own purposes.

    In turn, I like playing with ritual and subverting it to serve my own needs and ends. By appropriating Lent, I can take advantage of the residual power of an ancient tradition, co-opt some of its authority, and force myself into the fringes of a larger ritual community. I feel like I have more power over the rite than it has over me, in the “sabbath for the man, not man for the sabbath” sort of way.

    I’m sure that there are plenty of Christians (and skeptics) who don’t appreciate what I’m doing, and I generally try not to be quite so over the top about it. Maybe my explanation sounded better than what I’m actually doing.

    I’m still pretty new to Quakerism, and as a student of ritual, I’m still trying to understand Quaker revulsion to ritual (I know it’s rooted in the radical religious movements of Post-Reformation England). Could you perhaps shed some light on this?

    At any rate, it’ll be great to have you on board!

  • 4 John // Feb 21, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    Nee, great minds think alike! I wonder how many non-Christians participate in Lent? Good luck to you as well.

  • 5 Miko // Feb 22, 2007 at 11:11 am

    John: I’ve thought for a while on this. I used to be forced to participate in Lent for reasons I didn’t get. Since then I’ve sort of stayed away from it (although I celebrate Pancake Tuesday) because I don’t want to get trapped into that spiral again. My sister never eats meat on Fridays (the modern-traditional Catholic lenten penance is not to eat meat on Fridays), so for Lent she does that for the whole season & prays the rosary every day. I hope it does something for her. My other sister observes the fish-Fridays-in-Lent with an amazing recipe for frozen seafood chunks that tastes like heaven. If there are enough requests, I’ll post it. But it’s not really a “penance” in the sense that you’re giving something up. In our day and age, going vegetarian might take some self-discipline, if you’re not already, but switching from chicken/beef to seafood doesn’t really count as something you would not look forward too…

    So I’ve decided to give up alcohol. I’m sure Jana already thinks I’m a sop, which I probably am next to my (ex?)Mormon and Muslim acquaintances.

    The way it was explained to me as a kid and how we observed Lent until I got a little older was that the money you spent on whatever you were giving up would go to the poor (this doesn’t work if you substitute fish for meat, see above). We used to have a UNICEF box on the dinner table, which, now that I think about it? I can’t believe my parents supported, but maybe they were less liberal in the late 80s. Of course, I was sneaking chocolate on the side and didn’t have any money to begin with, so *shrug*. Ideas for your aCatholic Lents.

    FYI: Lent doesn’t count on Sundays. If you count the days, it doesn’t work out ifyou count Sundays. And Sundays are the weekly jubilee so you’re never supposed to be anything but joyful on Sundays. That means chocolate & red meat for all! Again, the hypocrisy blinds me…

    Zach: I don’t think pagans ever celebrated Lent per se, but Candlemas is the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. It’s a celelbration of light in darkness. And the darkness continues (think Puxatawny Phil) until Easter, when we finally break out of the dismal tail-end of winter into the blooming bulbs of Spring. For Catholics, the period from Candlemas to Easter is (basically) Lent: purple cassocks to white ones. And, after a season of feasting (late November through early January), a little bit of fasting ain’t such a bad idea.

    back to John (#3): It’s funny how the “ancient rituals” get coopted on the one hand and on the other, people seem to follow them even if they don’t know about them. My husband (so far removed from xianity that, his first time in church he asked his step mom if “that guy on the cross [was] Paul”) told me that he wanted to start doing a juice fast I used to do every month. And prior to that, we were on a post-xmas salad kick. It seems that this is a natural time to do some detoxing. Physically certainly, and while we’re at it, throw some spiritual in as well. He also wants to cut back our TV from cable to antenne. He claims his major motivation is that we’re paying for the cable and not using it, but I wonder if it’s also part of this cleansing aura that’s bustling about the world right now.

    nee: That sounds great! Where do you find these things? Which I don’t mean quite the way it came out…are you (LA) local? I’d love to know what your resources are for group meditations (the only ones I know of are in Marin Cty).

    So, in conclusion…this was a long-winded way of saying “I’ll be giving up alcohol” and trying to meditation more often.

  • 6 Zach A // Mar 10, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    Hi John & Miko, thanks for the responses, which I was a little too busy to reply to until now.

    John, I look at the traditional Quaker “revulsion to ritual” as follows. I love learning about Quaker history, so at some point I’d like to look into this more. The short version I think is that Quakers were the radical edge of the (little p) puritan movement, and ritual aversion was a puritan emphasis. I think they did everyone a good service by making the point that rituals are not necessary for “salvation.”

    But in terms of day-to-day living, what interests me about the Quaker movement is the core practice of listening to the “promptings of love and truth” in our hearts. For me right now, the “plain Quaker” lifestyle — plain dress, no birthdays, “always winter and never Christmas” — is not in accordance with the promptings of love and truth as I experience them. In fact it seems a bit anti-life.

    So I don’t worry too much about what they thought. I think it’s important Friends learn to stand on our own two feet/leadings more, and think less about how other people at other times felt themselves led.

    Be well,
    Zach

  • 7 Miko // Mar 10, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    Zach: your description of “plain Quaker” sounds a little too puritan for me. If there’s anything I believe a religion should be, it’s joyful. Life is too short to be depressed by your religion.

  • 8 Miko // Mar 14, 2007 at 11:28 am

    Lent in the news:
    ‚Ä¢ William Donahue’s favorite swearword
    • the Anti-Christ is a Green!

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