Happy Lent
Posted in Lent is not a very popular topic. You don’t usually ask someone, “so what are you giving up for Lent” in the same way you ask, “so what are you doing for Christmas?” Of course, maybe that’s because the marketing people haven’t figured out how to make money off of Lent. Sure there’s Mardi Gras, but at best that’s about Fat Tuesday and at worst it’s an excuse for debauchery. There are no Lent gifts; I’ve never seen a Lent greeting card; there are no obligatory Lent parties where where your presence or lack thereof will be duly noted. Maybe this is why I’m drawn to it.
I didn’t grow up practicing Lent. Baptists don’t particularly like Lent; it’s too Catholic. But in recent years I’ve been introduced to Lent and its purpose, which is quite strange. Forty days of giving up something good for the purpose of physically particularlizing our need for Christ seems like such a strange and old-fashioned customer. But it’s a custom that we post-moderns should embrace. Contrary to what many Christians want to admit Age of Enlightenment infiltrated Christianity and attempted to reduce our faith to a series of logical conclusions, but there is so much more meaning to our lives than mere logic can bring. And so Lent, with its seemingly outdated requirements, can be meaningful, provided that we actually engage with it and don’t just mindlessly follow a series of proscribed rules.
And so, for a very post-modern observation of Lent I’m giving up a very post-modern activity. From now until Easter I am giving up idle internet surfing. It’s not that I’m giving up the ‘net altogether, just those sites that typically suck my time such as Fark, Drudge, Digg, etc. For some people this might not seem like a major thing to give up, but when you work at home by yourself, those sorts of sites replace the water cooler; they are where I go when I have a few minutes of downtime between conference calls or emails. I’ve decided that sites like atlbloggers.net or even facebook (which I’m being sucked in to) are places where I talk to friends and are not idle surfing, so I’ll still be around there. But for some of my favorite sites it’s goodbye until Easter.
So, if for the next month plus I seem like I don’t know what’s going on in the world, now you know why…
