Warning: This post is one part religion and two parts squishy, self-indulgent personal revelation expunged in a somewhat inappropriate forum and therefore it has little entertainment value.
This year Lent is especially important to me. I feel that so much of my spiritual evolution recently has been (necessarily) receiving based. My quest became more imminent and earnest when I felt that there was something I needed from my life and existence that was not being provided. Seeking this missing piece, I have returned to the church and found a comforting yet overwhelming array of options to sift through, sort out, make sense of, and decide upon their usefulness to me personally. This task has been gratifying and frightening. I have spent much time and effort internally debating the place of acceptance and the place of inquiry. I do not want to teach myself to accept those things which I do not believe but I do feel a need to accept my belief in some things which I do not understand. That can be a fuzzy line to find and a difficult one to follow. The task requires much personal searching. It requires both internal and external guidance and assistance.
But as we are approaching the season of Lent, I am reminded that repairing my relationship with God and rediscovering my spiritual self is, quite counter-intuitively, not all about me. Any healthy relationship requires a give ant take. I have been needing to take much more than I have been able to give recently.
Considering the nature and symbolism of sacrifice is not an activity I have been accustomed to. I have viewed sacrifice as the greater counterpart of inconvenience; a thing I was willing to endure for people and beliefs only when necessary. And for my sacrifices I expected appreciation or even in kind repayment. But I am beginning to reconsider these assumptions.
What if those calls to sacrifice are not simply grand inconveniences? What if the sacrifices I make are, in fact, the balance for the gifts I receive? Maybe not on a person to person basis, but between the whole of me and the whole of my world. Then aren’t those things that I give up, sort of like a gift to myself in that the very act of sacrifice creates balance in my life? Then my greater task becomes not answering calls to give of my time and efforts. Rather, it becomes to discern where imbalance exists in my life and whether that imbalance must be rectified through giving or through receiving.
Sigh. Are you still there? I have not annoyed you or bored you enough to drive you all away yet? In that case I will get back to why this makes Lent so important to me this year. Some of my family and friend will remember that I have historically used lent as a way to break bad habits or give my diet an extra boost. I have given up things like coffee or eating out. I still think these are very valid things to sacrifice but this year I want to focus more on my actions than on my denial of desires. This year my plan is to give up those things witch I have a tendency to want in excess. This mean there will be more things I abstain from and they will be broader categories. I will be giving up my favorite category of each of the four calorie types. For protein I will give up meat. For fat I will give up cheese. For carbohydrates I will give up sweets. And finally, for alcohol I will give up . . . well, alcohol. I will also give up shopping for fun. I will still need to buy food and perhaps some other necessary items but I will not allow myself to spend time focusing on my potential consumerism. I will not browse in stores or troll the internet for deals or even check the free page on craigslist. In addition I plan to highlight my new perspective on sacrifice as a balancing factor in my life by giving myself something that I need but am usually to lazy to make a priority. I will be making myself get out of bed an hour earlier to go to the Adult Education classes at church on Sundays which will actually be very fitting since this gift to myself will be occurring on Sundays during Lent and those are the days meant to focus not on sacrifice and resistance of temptation but on the celebration of our ability to achieve those things.
My hope is that by writing all this out and posting it here, I will be better able to hold myself accountable. I will try to let you know how it goes.
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