“What are you giving up for Lent?” the school children asked me at morning assembly on “Fat” Tuesday. Having just given them every last bit of chocolate from the rectory, I said “for starters, I’m not eating any white death until Easter.” Lent is dying to this world to live for the next, but it also makes this life a lot healthier. “But what else are you giving up?” they cried out. Later that day, one of the parish secretaries asked me what I was “doing” for Lent. I rubbed my chin and looked out the window. “Well, I suppose I’d better give up being impatient with parish secretaries….”
Lent is famous for “giving up” things. Fasting (giving up things) is an indispensable means to God (because our lives are so full of junk), but almsgiving (giving things) is another essential way to God. He ceaselessly pours Himself out like the sun, streaming life and light in every direction. We become like God when we do as He does, pouring grace and beauty upon all around us.
Lent calls us to a third holy practice, as you heard in yesterday’s Gospel: prayer. Prayer is listening, stilling our bodies and souls enough to receive what God gives. “In the silence of the heart God speaks,” Mother Teresa of Calcutta often said.
Which is why I recommend, warmly, a “digital fast” this Lent. Never has there been so much noise in the world. Most people on the planet live in bondage to screens and earbuds. My school works to correct this problem, requiring students to check in their phones at the beginning of the day. Stella Maris is a fone-free zone. One of our 8th graders recently visited a nearby high school. She was amazed at how dead the schoolyard was at lunch. Everyone, it seemed, was by themselves staring at a phone. No one was talking, and no one was playing.
The most pressing problem of our time is noise. Nonstop visual and auditory noise renders us all rather stupid. One gets the impression of zombies in public places rather than fellow travelers. We have made very little effort to discipline our consumption of digital distraction. Everyone complains about it, but we all reach for our phones at the slightest pause in activity. We were promised “connectivity,” and we got isolation. They told us the internet would make us more intelligent, and we became rather more stupid. Certainly digital communications is a great blessing, but we must use it with self-control. And that's where Lent comes in.
Lent is the time to enter silence, to stay with stillness, to resist the compulsion So consider a media fast, at least on Fridays, or perhaps for the entire season of Lent. No music or podcasts in the car, on the trail or the sidewalk; no flickering screens while waiting in the airport or the dentist office. After a few days you will begin to see people and things you have not seen for some time. You will begin to think more deeply and perceive wonders you have forgotten. You will begin to hear what you have been longing to hear, and you will find a joyful peace in hearing the echoes of God’s voice in His beautiful creation.
Lent is famous for “giving up” things. Fasting (giving up things) is an indispensable means to God (because our lives are so full of junk), but almsgiving (giving things) is another essential way to God. He ceaselessly pours Himself out like the sun, streaming life and light in every direction. We become like God when we do as He does, pouring grace and beauty upon all around us.
Lent calls us to a third holy practice, as you heard in yesterday’s Gospel: prayer. Prayer is listening, stilling our bodies and souls enough to receive what God gives. “In the silence of the heart God speaks,” Mother Teresa of Calcutta often said.
Which is why I recommend, warmly, a “digital fast” this Lent. Never has there been so much noise in the world. Most people on the planet live in bondage to screens and earbuds. My school works to correct this problem, requiring students to check in their phones at the beginning of the day. Stella Maris is a fone-free zone. One of our 8th graders recently visited a nearby high school. She was amazed at how dead the schoolyard was at lunch. Everyone, it seemed, was by themselves staring at a phone. No one was talking, and no one was playing.
The most pressing problem of our time is noise. Nonstop visual and auditory noise renders us all rather stupid. One gets the impression of zombies in public places rather than fellow travelers. We have made very little effort to discipline our consumption of digital distraction. Everyone complains about it, but we all reach for our phones at the slightest pause in activity. We were promised “connectivity,” and we got isolation. They told us the internet would make us more intelligent, and we became rather more stupid. Certainly digital communications is a great blessing, but we must use it with self-control. And that's where Lent comes in.
Lent is the time to enter silence, to stay with stillness, to resist the compulsion So consider a media fast, at least on Fridays, or perhaps for the entire season of Lent. No music or podcasts in the car, on the trail or the sidewalk; no flickering screens while waiting in the airport or the dentist office. After a few days you will begin to see people and things you have not seen for some time. You will begin to think more deeply and perceive wonders you have forgotten. You will begin to hear what you have been longing to hear, and you will find a joyful peace in hearing the echoes of God’s voice in His beautiful creation.
Burning palms with the schoolchildren on "Fat Tuesday."
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