So: Lent is upon us. Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday (aka pancake day) making today Ash Wednesday, when the question once more rears its ugly head: what to give up for Lent?
Not that I have to, you understand: it’s just that in the past I have found it useful. I have weaned myself off things or changed my relationship with obsessions or simply improved my health by elbowing, say, TV or Facebook or dairy. But this year the idea of renunciation made me feel really fed up.
And this, I think, is because I’ve given up so much already. I avoid dairy because of my allergic rhinitis; we haven’t had TV for years because it costs too much; I’ve recently given up Facebook for a couple of months, we don’t have a car, I don’t drink much, and so on. So the idea of giving up yet another thing did not sit well with me. And I began to think, how does this work for people who have already given up so much? How does it work for the homeless and the dispossessed; how does it work for those who already have so little that to expect them to give something else up would be an insult?
So I decided to approach this differently. Really, Lent is not about hair shirts or self-mortification; it’s not about self-flagellation or humiliation. It’s about letting go of things which hold you back. And the thing that’s holding me back at the moment is self-doubt.
So there’s the answer. I’m giving up self-doubt for Lent.
At least I think I am…
Am I?
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 
ah, grasshopper, you start from the premis that everyone does lent, including all those homeless starving dirty people who have apparently been ignored by that loving god…….but some of us dont. Actually, I read somewhere the reasoning behind Pancake day coming the day before Ash Wednesday, and it turns out that pancakes, being very simple foods, would be made up in copious quantities from the last of the winter food store because lent was coming and that meant not eating for so many days………it was originally about giving up food, not easy stuff like chocolate. I have a good laugh when people post on fb that theyve given up coffee for lent and its proving sooooo hard…………poor things, bless em………..but giving up food, now thats hard and will make one appreciate those who really have much less than you . So, no doubt OH will argue with this, but seriously, when, centuries ago, the church came up with this idea of doing without, most people actually had no chocolate, or coffee to give up,
So, me not being one of those who follow such things, wish you well, and if you can find a way of giving up self-doubt I hope you will share it with me, as its my biggest issue in life…………….sort of…………apart from, you know………….erm…..
Isi Tart out