Feb
19
Written by:
host
2/19/2010 7:00 AM
The posts piled up over the past few days on Facebook and Twitter, and people talked about them in real-life conversations. "What are you giving up for Lent?" "Did you read the story about the guy in the military overseas who gave up Facebook for Lent?" "This year, I'm taking on a good habit instead of giving up a bad one." And then there was the girl at a friend's youth group, who asked her peers, "Could you give up texting for Lent?" (The answer in my church: apparently not, as I noticed some of the middle school girls huddled over their cell phones during the Ash Wednesday service!) For many (including me, I'll admit) this kind of story sharing has become the new ritual that begins the season of Lent. The Ash Wednesday cross is now the secondary mark (pardon the pun) that a new church season has begun.
The realization that I saw roughly the same number of posts on Facebook about Lent on the first day of Lent as I did people at my church's Ash Wednesday service got me thinking about the ways technology has changed the ways people practice faith during Lent. Here are just a few examples (and I hope you'll post a comment with your own observations.)
- Roman Catholics who (for reasons that seemed vague) used to associate Lent with giving up meat may go online to read more about this tradition. There, they may discover that abstaining from meat is a way of being linked with the poor, who often cannot afford meat for their meals. The article they read may lead them to a website where they can get involved in taking a next step, like donating money to a hunger organization or volunteering at a local food pantry.
- Persons who used to essentially keep their Lenten practices relatively private now use social networking tools to gain support for their journey during Lent. The practice is still personal, but with a new communal element.
- Twenty years ago, I might have picked up a copy of Guideposts or Alive Now to read during Lent, or I perhaps would have bought a recommended book of devotions. Today, though, I'd guess that selling Lenten devotional books must be a challenging job! After all (many people think), why buy a book I might forget to read when I can sign up for daily emails that will nurture my spirit each morning?
- When was the last time you popped in a CD of Lenten songs? Probably never, since Lenten music just hasn't become popular the way Christmas music is. Yet at least three of my Facebook friends posted links to their favorite Lenten hymns on YouTube and other websites, and I now have a new Lenten song in my head this week that I just love.
I think that we yearn today for ritual paired with creativity. We recognize the personal value of doing something habitually (like a spiritual practice) in order to cleanse our inner being of clutter and crud, much like we recognize the value of consistently cleaning out the lint trap to prevent the house from burning down. At the same time, we resonate with these words from Julia Cameron: "Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God." So in the season of Lent, we refocus our collective attention on the power of ritual while creatively adapting and expanding those rituals for our time.
I invite you to reflect upon your own Lenten rituals and those of the people you connect with regularly. How have they changed and deepened over the years? How might you creatively make changes to a spiritual habit this Lent? Where do you see other examples of tried-and-true rituals being reinvented, recreated, reinvigorated, re-imagined, or revisited?
~ by Tim Gossett
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