What are you giving up for Lent
 

OK. So today is the first day of Lent

LENT EXPLAINED HERE

Traditionally, Lent is a time of fasting or giving up certain foods and or activities in preparation for Easter.

I know some of you are rolling your eyes... yea Gods, more religion.

In my house we have adopted (and adapted) this tradition. We use it as a time to reflect on the things we have. We give up something (chocolate, movies, videogames, etc.) for the time of Lent. The idea is that everytime you go to reach for or do the activity you have given up it reminds you of why you are grateful for it in the first place. It reminds you that many are not quite so fortunate as to have things they can "give up."

I'm going to give up coffee.

What are you going to give up?

i don't even know where to start.

alcohol, tobacco, junk food, internet, etc... i don't know, maybe i'll have to flip a few coins to pick one.

I'm giving up all but one hour of tv per week... and online Scrabble :(. That oughta teach me.

Not having been brought up catholic, this isnt anything I ever participated in and all I know about it is that it runs 40 days (not counting sundays, cause you can do/have whatever you're giving up on that one day a week...which makes no sense to me).

I could give up Dr Pepper for that time I suppose

I grew up in a staunchly Roman Catholic home where Lent, Good Friday etc were observed as a rule of respect towards that religion and leniency and good thanks were guilted upon us.

Now that I'm grown up I have redefined those rules to suit me and others. So we endorse debauchery of sorts to the opposite of giving something up. Tonight it is Alaskan King Crab legs. Good Friday may be a rib roast or something fishy like lobster.

This is a good post Charlatan and I'm not trying to ruin it by being adverse or ignorant. I give up alot of my time volunteering for several organizations in the name of ME and well, giving something up in the name of religion,...been there done that,...when I had to. OK, I'll give up one!!! Sex. NOT

I'm giving up sugar--well, excess sugar, and specifically high fructose corn syrup (as much as humanly possible, as they do try and stick it into everything around these parts, even bread). I have some diet soda and Splenda in case I need it (sugar junkie here) but I'm trying to limit even my use of that.

I always try to pick something really hard. One year I gave up meat.

Shani, as for being able to enjoy your sacrifice on Sundays, I usually don't do that. Otherwise I'm too tempted to just not continue come Monday. The idea behind being able to enjoy it on Sunday is that it reminds you how tough it is to sacrifice on a weekly basis, and it reminds Christians of the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross.

I also hold up the rules of fasting and actually attend church during Lent...craziness, I know. But Lent is one of my favorite times of year--I see it as a time to refocus, rechannel my energies, and cleanse myself spiritually through sacrifice, prayer, and charity. I think it is a time that everyone could use--Christian or not. Occasionally we need to be reminded that what we have today could be gone tomorrow, and we also need to be reminded to slow down and take time out. We need to be reminded that there are other people in the world besides us, and some of them need our help.

Snowy... that is sort of what I am suggesting, only in a secular sense of the word.

OMG!! Have I just started a War on Lent? :lol:

Now everybody will be wishing each other Happy Give-up-somethingness. Alert John Gibson.

This is one of my favorite times of year too for the reasons onesnowyowl gives. Also, during lent, our church had a service every wednesday followed by a soup and sandwich lunch. Since this used to be the most stressfull time of year at my previous job, taking time to go to that was like a year of therapy. Now that we've moved, I will sorely miss that. So, every day during lent, I will take time to meditate at noon, and have a very simple lunch. No going out for lunch.

Well, I'm not Catholic, so I don't observe Lent. I probably wouldn't even if I was Catholic, for several reasons..

Hopefully a lot of people will give up driving for Lent, so traffic won't be as bad for me :D

you can't give up online scrabble SC! who will i play with? :p

sweetpea

Sodium in my diet.

Because, well, I have high blood pressure.

I'm giving up scotch. I only have one a week, but is my reward to myself. I have a fine collection of scotch and the better reward the better the scotch. So in my way I'm giving up alot, especially since I'm not catholic.

I've decided to give up caffeine for lent.

my old self....

Lent is one of the few things that I carry over from my Catholic upbringing.

I'll be giving up tea and soft drinks, and won't be taking any caffeine pills to replace the missing caffeine. Today was hell, which is, I suppose, the point. I'll be observing Sunday days off so that I can have a tea ceremony with Grace, which is a part of her religion.

Gilda

I kinda think it was funny. As a kid we followed the rules (no meat on Fridays), which meant Fish and Chips for dinner. Sounds like a treat to me - not fasting...

Being non-religious now, I hadn't really thought about it and I reckon that just being alive requires some sacrifice...so I'm not giving up anything.

Masturbation seems like a good one. I bet it will be <i>hard</i> though.

For Lent I'm giving up trying to give things up for Lent.

Everytime I force myself to give things up for specific occasions (Lent, New Year's Resolutions, etc.) it never works. I manage to buckle down, grind through a week or so and then just take up the 'habit' again. It's just a week of me being horrifically cranky and it doesn't seem to do me a bit of good.

I think I'm just going to stick to my program of moderation. Keep the sugar, but in moderation. Keep the salt, but in moderation. You get the idea.

FWIW, this past New Year's I decided to give up coffee for a while. Two weeks later, I came to work and a hot cup of coffee was sitting at my desk along with a small note that said "Please drink" that was signed by all my co-workers.

LOL

That is some funny stuff :)

I also think it's better to just do everything in moderation for the entire year than to give something up for one month.

I've given up being unnecessarily nice to people. So far it's paying dividends.

I caught myself going for the TV so many times today... I'm glad I decided to ditch it for Lent this year - I definitely needed the perspective.

As somebody pointed out, Lent is mainly about reflection. From my point, that means giving up something only insofar that it gets in the way of reflection, or if giving it up will give you more time or inclination to reflect. I'm unemployed, so I need no extra time. I reflect -a lot.-

One way to reflect is through action, though, and the wife and I will be making and serving dinner to some homeless folks as part of a local volunteer program. There'll be time to sit and talk. And I have no doubt I'll have a lot to reflect upon afterwards.

Another way to observe Lent is to try on focus on something and make an improvement in your life. I am going to TRY (I probably won't fully succeed) and give up being grouchy. Sheesh, knowing what meetings I have scheduled in the next 2 weeks, I doubt I will even make it through tomorrow. But then I will try again.

You know, I never used to give anything up for lent, probably since about 3rd or 4th grade, but I did again for the first time two years ago. I realized that there *IS* a purpose, but that it, unfortunately, is never really communicated, or communicated well.

Really, I think the idea of giving something up for lent has a very Buddhist flavor to it, in that it involves material self-denial. I don't buy the idea of drawing parallels between giving something up and the suffering of Jesus or any of that stuff. Nor do I buy into the whole fish thing. I see lent as an exercise in moving beyond corporeal attachments so as to find the joy in freeing ourselves from such restrictive addictions. That is not to say, of course, that physical pleasures are bad, but only that they can be inhibitive if we allow them to be. They can blind us to the greater pleasures of existence. And, thus, I decided to begin this extended exercise of giving something up for lent again last year.

When I started again two years ago, I gave up caffeine and carbonated beverages (so as to cover the loopholes) quite successfully. I think I'm going to do the same this time.

This is going to be hard,

but i'm giving up sobriety, moderation, and abstinence :)

SecretMethod... this is what I am trying to get at by proposing that this become a more secular practice as well.

Good post.

Charlatan...I was thinking about your post last night while I was in the shower, and it crossed my mind that one of the reasons why, perhaps, that this practice should be more mainstream/secular/what-have-you, is because we don't know how to do without. We, as a generation, have NEVER had to sacrifice. Our parents' generation had to sacrifice their friends and brothers (Vietnam) and our grandparents' generation had to sacrifice people as well as goods (WWII). If your grandparent was born in the 1920s, then they are all too familiar with the struggle that was the Great Depression. Personally, my grandparents lived through hard times during World War II, including near-starvation. Have I ever faced that kind of hardship? No. So whether you look at it as sacrifice, doing without, or self-denial--I think in the larger picture I hope it helps us realize just how lucky we are to live now versus then.

Very good point, Owl. I must say I haven't practiced Lent in a few years, but I always respect those who do... it's hard to give up luxuries, period. But I think it definiteiy makes one more aware of how consuming we are, and how our spirits suffer from the overflow of self-pleasing in our lives.

When I was into it, I would give up food things (cheese one year, desserts/sweets another, etc), but for a couple of years I did give up masturbation. Someone mentioned that above... but yeah, it was when I was single, and it was pretty damn tough. I think I indulged on Sundays one year because I just couldn't stand it! :)

tfp

see ya.......

I'm not religious-- but I think it's fun to challenge myself, and since my boyfriend is Catholic, this time of the year works well. I'm giving up all dairy and eggs and attempting a completely vegan diet. Also I'm not eating peanut butter and saltine crackers because I eat those two things entirely too much.

How exactly do you think caffeine is blinding me to the 'greater pleasures of existence?' I'm not being a smartass...I honestly can't see where you're coming from.

Lent and other holidays of the same vein, are splendid times, I think, to examine one's life and reflect upon the past year. I think that's great. Everyone should do a little introspective house cleaning every once in a while. What I don't understand is the self-denial. Why do it? What is it's purpose? To show mastery over sweets or nicotine? To show mastery over one's body?
Self-loathing wrapped up in psuedo-mysticism? Would somebody like to explain it to me, please?

I've never given up anything for lent. To be honest, I only learned what Lent was in grade twelve. My religious education has been limited to literature, movies, and over the past year or so a bit more in depth study.

So...

What's the "fish thing" smeth?

Back when I was a kid.. during Lent, no meat (or chicken) was to be eaten - and Fridays were fish days 9to this day, I cannot stand tuna casserole or fillet of flounder - it was the friday meal of choice of a working mom who was a bad cook :)

The one exception to it (And I swear my mother made this up, but I've heard it from other people as well)- was if St Patty's Day fell during Lent, then an exceptioon was granted and corned beef was allowed (as well as beer for those who chose to give up booze for Lent)

These days, i think it's just Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are meat free days...

All Fridays are technically meat-free days for Catholics. How many follow this, I don't know. I do remember that the cafeterias at Notre Dame didn't serve meat on Fridays during Lent.

Thank you Mal and asaris!

I did at one point in time remember that Fridays were fish only days, but I must have forgotten. Hopefully I'll keep that in my brain this time.

All fridays being meat free was changed after vatican ii - if I remember correctly -

it always amuses me that during lent - mc donalds has front and center on ther menu again the fish sandwich...

It's a tradition that still lingers subtly around in that most restaurants offer clam chowder as their Friday soup selection.

I only know about fish fridays because it was referenced on M*A*S*H all the time.

going to a public school fish was always served on fridays all year long.

Also cafeteria's and such at my workplaces, as well as in the military fish was just a regular thing on the menu for Friday.

so much for seperation of church and state.

i whole-heartedly believe in moderation and moderating the moderation. times of lent and the new year i like to indulge 100 fold...to remember that we need to go full bore once in a while.....

never occurred to me that lent was even a major religious holiday until 2 yrs ago when i was in NYC and saw people walking around wtih ash crosses o ntheir heads. My friend and i thought something was really odd and it wasn't until days later that i figured out it was Lent and mostly catholics were celebrating..

Just shows how few catholics there are in the south...

(my town: 315 churches, 1 catholic)