Schreiber (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
choco_frosh) wrote2007-02-23 09:12 am
choco_frosh) wrote2007-02-23 09:12 am
Realm: Religion - Subrealm: Lent
Warning: Theology ahead!
Fasting: Me personally
"Ironically, I'm sort of glad that it's almost Lent," I said to Miti on Tuesday. "I can finally get some work done."
My neighbor and colleague was understandably confused, until I explained the nature of my lentan observance. For I'm an episcopalian: those of us who bother to observe Lent at all usually make up our own devotion. Lots of people (including Grace and, by extension, myself) give up desserts for Lent; but the revvy Reverend Matt Lincoln once gave up guilt, and Grace's high church colleague Terrence once gave up Church for Lent. The emphasis, when it comes to giving things up, is to figure out what most draws you from the love of God, and what will most help you to grow spiritually.
So I give up the internet for Lent.
Now, some of you are probably wondering, "If Josh gives up the 'Net for Lent, than how come he's posting to LJ right now?" Well, the answer is that I'm not all that strict about it. E-mail (for which I use Pine in any case) doesn't count; and since one of the points of email is keeping up with friends, I also make an exception for blogs. (Since missing out on the whole All Your Base phenomenon in Spring '99, I also sometimes make an exception for links people send me). But no more webcomics; no more reading back issues of Narbonic; no more looking up things I don't REALLY need to know about on Wikipedia. No more Onion. Also no more computer games. My objective is my numerous computer-related time-sucks, which keep me from getting work done or actually interacting with people.
So on my sadly Blätzle-less Shrove Tuesday, I was looking forward to Lent: a time of spiritual growth, productivity, fulfilledness. Now it's Friday. I'm craving sugar, suffering serious withdrawal from my internet addiction, and I STILL got practically zero done yesterday. Our sins - perhaps I should say, our basic state of sinfulness - doesn't just go away because of external action on our part. Even keeping them under control requires the grace of God and serious effort on our part. But the external action--fasting, say--does help with that process.
Or at least, it helps me keep my waistline and my internet addiction under control.
Fasting: And discordant Gospel passages
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them...
And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.
I heard these words (as I do most years when I remember to go to church on Ash Wednesday) at approximately 8:15 AM two days ago. And as usual, I wondered how we should take them. Indeed, whether we should listen to them at all in this day and age. You see, I had gotten up at the ungodly hour required to get down town by 8 partly as a means of starting my Lent off right, but more because I have a fondness for what the SCA refers to as "shocking the mundanes." After all, I could just have gone to an evening or noonday service. But by getting up early, I get to walk around all day with a cross of ash on my forehead , and hopefully weird at least a few people out. Heck, why else do it at all?
Okay, I know perfectly well why not. The ashes are a reminder of something to those who are marked by them, not to the rest of the world. But could they not they have the latter function, too?
You see, in twenty-first century America, fasting (and related acts) aren't the keys to social success that they were in first-century Palestine. You're not necessarily going "to be praised by others": indeed, they're more likely to think you're a bit of a freak, as I think my colleagues did when I mentioned that I'd be spending the next six and a half weeks without chocolate or the Web. And on the other hand, Jesus also tells us to "let your light shine in front of people, so that they see your good works and praise your Father in heaven." In today's world, might not wandering around town with the black mark of penitence and mortality on your brow be a way of reminding folks that Christians still walk among them, that they include people that they know, and that they're not necessarily crazy, even when they do and say some kind of weird things? To say nothing of the ex-christians, or those who don't come to church too often, who may think. "Huh. There's someone who went to church today (and isn't afraid that people will look at him funny). Maybe I should go back myself, some time."
Obviously, I'm not interested in my own reputation, and looking gloomy is going to be downright counter-productive. But I still want to be seen by others.
I can hope (like the evangelicals I sometimes see here in the reading room with Jesus t-shirts) that my flaunting of who I am...or try to be...may help assure people that Christians aren't freaks. Or at least, that they may be freaks, but they're the fun kind. Kinda like a gay pride parade. But still, I think being told every year not to practice my righteousness before other people is good for me. It reminds me--it reminds all of us--to examine our motivations, and remember that shocking the mundanes should not be an end in itself.
Fasting: Me personally
"Ironically, I'm sort of glad that it's almost Lent," I said to Miti on Tuesday. "I can finally get some work done."
My neighbor and colleague was understandably confused, until I explained the nature of my lentan observance. For I'm an episcopalian: those of us who bother to observe Lent at all usually make up our own devotion. Lots of people (including Grace and, by extension, myself) give up desserts for Lent; but the revvy Reverend Matt Lincoln once gave up guilt, and Grace's high church colleague Terrence once gave up Church for Lent. The emphasis, when it comes to giving things up, is to figure out what most draws you from the love of God, and what will most help you to grow spiritually.
So I give up the internet for Lent.
Now, some of you are probably wondering, "If Josh gives up the 'Net for Lent, than how come he's posting to LJ right now?" Well, the answer is that I'm not all that strict about it. E-mail (for which I use Pine in any case) doesn't count; and since one of the points of email is keeping up with friends, I also make an exception for blogs. (Since missing out on the whole All Your Base phenomenon in Spring '99, I also sometimes make an exception for links people send me). But no more webcomics; no more reading back issues of Narbonic; no more looking up things I don't REALLY need to know about on Wikipedia. No more Onion. Also no more computer games. My objective is my numerous computer-related time-sucks, which keep me from getting work done or actually interacting with people.
So on my sadly Blätzle-less Shrove Tuesday, I was looking forward to Lent: a time of spiritual growth, productivity, fulfilledness. Now it's Friday. I'm craving sugar, suffering serious withdrawal from my internet addiction, and I STILL got practically zero done yesterday. Our sins - perhaps I should say, our basic state of sinfulness - doesn't just go away because of external action on our part. Even keeping them under control requires the grace of God and serious effort on our part. But the external action--fasting, say--does help with that process.
Or at least, it helps me keep my waistline and my internet addiction under control.
Fasting: And discordant Gospel passages
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them...
And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.
I heard these words (as I do most years when I remember to go to church on Ash Wednesday) at approximately 8:15 AM two days ago. And as usual, I wondered how we should take them. Indeed, whether we should listen to them at all in this day and age. You see, I had gotten up at the ungodly hour required to get down town by 8 partly as a means of starting my Lent off right, but more because I have a fondness for what the SCA refers to as "shocking the mundanes." After all, I could just have gone to an evening or noonday service. But by getting up early, I get to walk around all day with a cross of ash on my forehead , and hopefully weird at least a few people out. Heck, why else do it at all?
Okay, I know perfectly well why not. The ashes are a reminder of something to those who are marked by them, not to the rest of the world. But could they not they have the latter function, too?
You see, in twenty-first century America, fasting (and related acts) aren't the keys to social success that they were in first-century Palestine. You're not necessarily going "to be praised by others": indeed, they're more likely to think you're a bit of a freak, as I think my colleagues did when I mentioned that I'd be spending the next six and a half weeks without chocolate or the Web. And on the other hand, Jesus also tells us to "let your light shine in front of people, so that they see your good works and praise your Father in heaven." In today's world, might not wandering around town with the black mark of penitence and mortality on your brow be a way of reminding folks that Christians still walk among them, that they include people that they know, and that they're not necessarily crazy, even when they do and say some kind of weird things? To say nothing of the ex-christians, or those who don't come to church too often, who may think. "Huh. There's someone who went to church today (and isn't afraid that people will look at him funny). Maybe I should go back myself, some time."
Obviously, I'm not interested in my own reputation, and looking gloomy is going to be downright counter-productive. But I still want to be seen by others.
I can hope (like the evangelicals I sometimes see here in the reading room with Jesus t-shirts) that my flaunting of who I am...or try to be...may help assure people that Christians aren't freaks. Or at least, that they may be freaks, but they're the fun kind. Kinda like a gay pride parade. But still, I think being told every year not to practice my righteousness before other people is good for me. It reminds me--it reminds all of us--to examine our motivations, and remember that shocking the mundanes should not be an end in itself.