2022 | Lent

Lent is a period of 40 days during which Christians remember the events leading up to and including the death of Jesus Christ, whose life and teachings are the foundation of Christianity. The 40-day period is called Lent after an old English word meaning 'lengthen'. - bbc.co.uk

I grew up in the Christian faith tradition. This meant attending church on Sundays, observing Easter and Christmas, and practicing faith practices such as praying, reading the Bible, and attending Sunday School.

As I have journeyed through my life, I have found that although my Christian faith remains, how I approach it has shifted.

As a teenager, I began searching for a more authentic ‘less is more’ type of practice, and even still, I find I am more at home in the understated, quiet, and ancient traditions.

During lent, many give up a specific type of food or drink to focus instead on prayers and giving. Instead of these things, I was more attracted to giving up something that had weighed heavily on me for months now.

Social Media.

Don’t get me wrong; I have not given up social media altogether for my work. Still, I have found that putting restrictions on my attendance on social media throughout lent has allowed me a different type of peace in my mind I had not encountered before.

For this period, I have made it a practice that I will go on all social media platforms once a day, and when I leave that platform after posting, viewing, commenting, reading etc. I do not revisit until the following day.

This has given my mind, body and soul a different type of air to breathe. A new way of looking at this season and all aspects of life in general.

Since I am on week five of this, I can honestly also say that once this practice became more regular, I noticed how other distractions fought for that newly found mind, body soul space.

And I am left with:

There will always be a distraction, a pull, a tug, a reason to not dig into prayer, to give of oneself and the practice of grace.

There is always some new event or happening to be outraged about, some recent debate to join, and a new show to watch.

But, when we remind ourselves of this truth during a season like Lent, we are reminded of our humanity. In a way, I believe our follies are not supposed to be about embracing shame but are supposed to remind us to softly chuckle, shake our heads in amusement and say a quiet prayer of gratitude that there is enough grace for this moment this day and this season.