lent reflections
I've been meaning to write about my lent experience lately, but haven't taken the time. The last time that I was in Michigan was right before Lent and I got talking to Jana about giving something up for Lent. I wasn't really planning on doing anything, but then remembered that I had written about how my quest for knowledge is sometimes out of hand and that i use it to escape from life. So, I decided to give up reading some things, but I wasn't always very good at it.
At first I said to myself that I wouldn't read anything unless it was directly personal (email or mail) and that I would read the bible more. The biggest thing for me to give up was some of my email. I was/am subscribed to a bunch of different places (crcjustice, eco-justice, green peace, organicconsumers.org, and many more) that send out at least weekly emails -- some just newsletters, but often they have action alerts where you can email your congresspeople or other political representatives. Well, it was out of hand. I probably got around 5 - 10 emails a day which doesn't seem like that much, but it added up -- having to read them all and then sending emails to political people, etc. So I decided that the world of environmental and social justice could survive without me for a few weeks and it has been nice to just be free of feeling like I have to read every last thing and send emails about all kinds of "urgent" things.
I also tried to keep myself from surfing the internet very much (ie. reading stuff on msn.com after I signed out of hotmail), or even from reading books (fiction and non-fiction alike). Instead I read the bible more (and did taxes:). While I wasn't always very good at it (toward the end I let msn and books and magazines creep in a bit, but it really opened my eyes to the amount of media there is and how much I am drawn to it. Like, even billboards as I am driving -- and they're not even that exciting! (at least most of them). I'm getting better at skimming magazines and other stuff that isn't vital to my existence and I am slowly unsubscribing to the email newsletters and things as I see fit. I think that I'll always be bombarded by words and knowledge, but even just stepping back from it a bit was helpful.
Well, that's about the extent of my thoughts on it....I'm glad that I posted the article a long while back that led to discussion on escaping from things in life!
At first I said to myself that I wouldn't read anything unless it was directly personal (email or mail) and that I would read the bible more. The biggest thing for me to give up was some of my email. I was/am subscribed to a bunch of different places (crcjustice, eco-justice, green peace, organicconsumers.org, and many more) that send out at least weekly emails -- some just newsletters, but often they have action alerts where you can email your congresspeople or other political representatives. Well, it was out of hand. I probably got around 5 - 10 emails a day which doesn't seem like that much, but it added up -- having to read them all and then sending emails to political people, etc. So I decided that the world of environmental and social justice could survive without me for a few weeks and it has been nice to just be free of feeling like I have to read every last thing and send emails about all kinds of "urgent" things.
I also tried to keep myself from surfing the internet very much (ie. reading stuff on msn.com after I signed out of hotmail), or even from reading books (fiction and non-fiction alike). Instead I read the bible more (and did taxes:). While I wasn't always very good at it (toward the end I let msn and books and magazines creep in a bit, but it really opened my eyes to the amount of media there is and how much I am drawn to it. Like, even billboards as I am driving -- and they're not even that exciting! (at least most of them). I'm getting better at skimming magazines and other stuff that isn't vital to my existence and I am slowly unsubscribing to the email newsletters and things as I see fit. I think that I'll always be bombarded by words and knowledge, but even just stepping back from it a bit was helpful.
Well, that's about the extent of my thoughts on it....I'm glad that I posted the article a long while back that led to discussion on escaping from things in life!
posted by MSMAR @ 8:20 PM
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