Lent, a little early

Published 2010-02-10

I realize Ash Wednesday is next week but I’m gonna get started early on Lent. I never do Lent, not being a Christian except in the “culturally Christian” sense, but with the seasonal theme of sacrifice and redemption it feels like a good time to do some spiritual housecleaning.

But what to “give up?” It turns out I’m pretty much living the medieval version of Lent already, as I scarcely ever eat meat, drink beer, or lust any more. (I do drink a lot of coffee and enjoy the occasional donut, sure.) I’m lousy at this materialism thing so I score pretty low on the avarice and envy scales too. Not a lot of personal sins to give up here. Besides which, focusing on personal sins is a little narcissistic: I don’t need to better my self, I need to better my relationships.

To that end, here are my Lent resolutions:

  1. No more screens at home. I pretty much stopped watching TV so that’s easy to quit. But also: no more idly surfing TV Tropes on the iTouch. No more Google Reader at breakfast. No more “catching up” with the news on Sunday night. When I’m at home, my focus should be on my relationships with Jenny, Orion, and Bismarck not glowing rectangles. I make two exceptions here:
    • I can check the weather
    • If I’m working. On work. The kind that gets me paid.
  2. No more social media narcisssism. Specifically: my personal TwitterFacebookFlickrverse doesn’t care so much about how nice my commute was. I could just say: “no more Twitter and Facebook” but then I’d miss out on what my friends are doing, which is the purpose right? So to this end I’m limiting myself to four social media activities:
    • “Liking” things on Facebook
    • Retweeting and “faving” items on Twitter
    • Direct Messages on any medium
    • Tweeting progress on my New Year’s Resolution
  3. Tithe for my neighborhood. Specifically, renew my commitment to some organizations that I’ve let languish: