The Lenten Season

Honestly, I'm usually not really big into Lent. Self-denial is not topping my list very often, and while I know it not being fun is essentially the point.. it's not any good if it's not a sacrifice; I'm often less of a fan because I am a little too good at it, than because it's not a hell of a good time. I realize that abstinence from something or other is often very good for the soul, just like giving. But when I'm sitting in church and the pastor is saying "giving is good for you.. so write your check now," it's difficult to separate what I feel can be underlying intentions.

(I'll interject here that underlying intentions are what make me a little 'eh' on organized religion in general; another reason I rarely participate seriously in Lent is the fact that I am not Catholic and only recently am entertaining the idea that I might be Christian after all.. read C.S. Lewis)

But occasionally in the past, I've given something up, just as an exercise, to see if I could, and what effect it might have; I'm sure that it didn't hurt me in my life, and perhaps helped to cultivate discipline and simpler tastes.

But yesterday, I read this entry by 565 about looking inside to ask What is separating me from God? What separates me from joy? What is holding me back from being what I was destined to be?

I love new takes on old things. Questions phrased in this way make me think much more than "What pleasure should I give up for a while, this year?"

That very night, I found that the popular social networking website, the facebook, was upsetting me, and not for the first time. We joke about how the thing does more harm than good, when it displays all the 'news' about your friends on the 'mini-feed' without so much as checking in to see if you have perhaps had a fight with someone, or if you really want to see photos of her having fun without you. I've managed to adjust the controls, even, to prevent certain people from appearing almost at all. But it didn't stop a friend from using that server to send me a message bearing me tidings that I certainly could have gone much longer without knowing.

The more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized my facebook had become a bit of a compulsion, and a bit of a place to show off. To "stand naked in the street and call it honesty," if you will. It provides a surface-level survey of those people who use it (so many, these days!).. and back when I first had mine, I cluttered it with ironic things, which of themselves were meant to warn people off of taking any of it seriously. I set my relationship status to "married," to my friend Amber (we'd had a longstanding joke involving the Latin for "I love you as a sister," and "I love you, wife." [Amo te ut soror/Amo te uxor]). I had to change this when my friends began to demonstrate that they were of marrying age by commiting that act.

Times change, and so did my dealings with the wily facebook. I have realized by now that the facebook is not a "pleasure," like sugar or alcohol could be (although it does sometimes have comparable effects?), nor is it a tool that brings me closer to joy.

And there's been some real joy, especially lately. Not a bit of it facebook-originating.