As we’re in the 60 and above crowd, John and I aren’t expected to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday anymore, but we still do our best to come up with something to give up or something to do each year to make Lent more meaningful for us.
In years past, we did some challenging things, like giving up sugar, fasting in various forms, or, one year, I went to daily Mass. This year, I set the bar low. This is the ninth year we’ve been overseeing my mom’s care. Three months ago, she fell and broke her hip, and was moved from an assisted living facility to hospice care in the memory unit of a nearby elder care services facility. That move has created more responsibility for us, as we strive to get to the facility at lunchtime as often as possible to feed her.
For Lent this year, I decided to disconnect from news headlines. I’d been finding myself going deeper into rabbit holes, spending way too much time on my phone, and finding it hard to sleep at night. The solution to that was giving up X/Twitter for Lent.
I haven’t fallen off the wagon once. Rather than being a hardship, it’s actually made my life less worrisome. From the few headlines I’ve seen from other social media sources, frightful things have been happening in our world for the last six weeks. Truth be told, I may continue fasting from the news until things settle down. I really don’t need the stress of hearing about situations I have no control over.
We weren’t looking for it, but we happened upon another thing to give up during Lent. Six-plus weeks with no grocery shopping. Since we became empty nesters, we realized that too much food was getting beyond its expiration date before we had time to eat it. We decided at the end of January to forgo grocery shopping until we’d eaten everything in our refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.
What might sound challenging to a lot of people turned out to be the ideal situation for us. This gave us the chance to clear out our food backstock and also put our creativity to the test— designing menus with diverse ingredients. By the end, we had some interesting, shall I say, meals.
What about you? What’s the most interesting thing you gave up or committed to do for Lent? Blessings to all as we enter the most holy week of the year.