It’s the first Lenten period where I actually successfully abstain from alcohol. Pregnancy made it easy to do.
Ben started his year of sobriety last October. A few weeks into it, I found out I was pregnant. So, we’ve both been alcohol-free for nearly five months—a record for us both in recent memory.
So, how’s Lent looking like this year?
Jump to:
Prayer
I have tried getting into meditation again, but after several years, Calm’s guided meditations don’t do anything for me anymore. I’ve also tired of Hallow. I don’t really take advantage of their libraries, as I only want lightly guided, timed meditations.
I’ve found myself more willingly immersing myself in the Rosary during Adoration at my local church. It’s also the parish priest’s go-to penance—to pray a decade of the Rosary after confession. What evangelical Christians taught me was trite, repetitive, meaningless, and shallow, became something immersive, contemplative, calming, and thought-provoking. The Rosary would give me an opportunity to focus my thoughts and prayers both inwards and outwards—when my confessor tells me to pray for the people I’d shown spite for, or for people affected by war, or for the Catholic church, it gives me pause, put my vanities aside, and really think about the people in my life, and in the world.
Fasting and abstinence
I haven’t abstained or fasted on Ash Wednesday or recent Fridays. I’m pregnant, after all. Sometimes I chide myself, thinking of how vegans today can have a healthy pregnancy, so why shouldn’t I try to commit to my usual Friday abstinence?
I’m not going to be scrupulous in this aspect. I’m focussing on my health and well-being, for myself and the baby.
Almsgiving
I haven’t given alms in a while, mostly because I forget to withdraw cash from an ATM. My advocacies page is still relatively up to date. I almost reported an Australian charity for suspected embezzlement—they could not account for my donations through all of 2023 for several weeks, until they reconciled it.
I now understand why it’s important to seek acknowledgement of your donations, when you become a donor to an organisation. It’s not for the kudos—it’s for accountability, a paper trail. Charities will email you to thank you profusely, but also build goodwill, and to nudge you to do more for them. They’ll also send you a receipt so you can rest knowing they know they received your funds, and it’s on them to report on how they use their funds.
That being said, I might be done with bank transfers. It’s tedious. Unfortunately, a lot of Philippine-based organisations still rely on it instead of having a card payment facility, where you’re able to leave your contact details and be subscribed to their mailing list. I had to chase two organisations to get them to confirm and acknowledge that they have received my donations via bank transfer. And you’d have to do this every single time you make a donation. Otherwise, you’d have no idea whether your money is reaching their causes, whether it’s accounted for, or whether someone’s quietly pocketing it. They might not even be aware that you’re donating to them at all, unless you tell them.
Penances
In his homily during Ash Wednesday, our parish priest explained that Lent is a time for prayer, fasting, and penance. I was a bit astonished, as this departed from the usual ‘prayer, fasting, and almsgiving’ that I’m used to. Granted, he was addressing children in attendance during the mass, and children probably don’t have their own means for giving alms.
No social media*
I’m reading Digital Minimalism again, in part to improve my mental health and in part to reclaim lost time on my phone. Over Christmas, I was getting troubled by how much I was spending my precious leave days splayed in bed or on the couch, withering away the hours on my phone or iPad, because it was the easiest thing to do. So I asked Ben to change the lock on my iPad, and deleted Facebook, Instagram, reddit, and YouTube from my phone, at least until the Epiphany.
The eleven days that followed between Christmastide and Epiphany felt very fruitful to me, and I’d resolved to delete these apps again during Lent. So that’s what I did. The caveat here is that I can still check these sites on desktop. But as you might expect, it’s not as addictive, accessible, or consuming when I have to go to my home office, boot up my MacBook, and sit there. But I still refrain from opening them.
Interestingly, it also ties to the digital declutter methodology that Cal Newport lays out in Digital Minimalism; namely, you cull these apps for a given period, then slowly and deliberately reintroduce them only for specific use cases and justifications that make sense to you.
What made sense for me was to check social media for life updates from my family and close friends. I saw photos from my sister on my nephew’s birthday, and Facebook stories from my stepmother on my father’s birthday. These enriched my life, and I did not navigate to anywhere else in the feed. Ben reckons my penance is too harsh, because I have a great justification for using social media—to connect with my family. I think being able to check on desktop is a good compromise.
I also kept YouTube, as I watch longform videos during mealtimes or when I’m cooking or cleaning up in the kitchen. These enrich my life. YouTube is easier to put down when you’re viewing it on the iPad on the kitchen bench, and not being fed reels on mobile.
Which, interestingly, brought me this:
The timing tickled me, as I did feel validated in my Lenten penance. But the video does pose a similar question that Digital Minimalism asks:
How are you using social media to live and serve your values?
For myself, aside from the addiction, mental health, and time component, I’ve realised that:
- Instagram and Facebook feed and serve my tendency for consumerism. I love being served ads and discovering new brands. I love that Instagram’s algorithm is on to me. I don’t see these inclinations as intrinsically evil, but I can pause my consumerist mindset for a few months a year.
- Having my phone constantly next to me, especially in bed, makes it easy to delay and disrupt my sleep; or conversely, makes it hard for me to get up to start my day. It invites me to vice instead of virtue. I don’t need to check emails on my phone just because I’m bored. I don’t need to browse random things just because I can.
- I check my phone compulsively at the slightest hint of boredom. Since deleting the apps on my phone for Lent, I’ve caught myself unlocking my phone to look for Instagram, for no logical or determined reason. It was literally an instinct.
- Now that I use my phone less, I actually leave it away from me—in a different room, on top of the bookcase—and I’m not as beholden to checking it when it’s physically away from me. Which means that, when I get bored, I actually get up to do other things—cook, vacuum, read a book, go on a walk and run errands, write on my journal, attend to things that have been neglected. Sleep comes easier at night, and my mind is much clearer.
No spend
I’ve maintained this through the years with varying degrees of success and rigidity, but I pause frivolous spending during Lent and Advent. I don’t make purchases that aren’t necessary, and I get Ben’s help to check my reasoning. Food and groceries are necessary. Purchasing a new set of bed linen for our guest room is not necessary.
If the past few years are anyting to go by, none of these virtuous habits will be sustained, or drastically change my life today. But it’s a good seasonal practice to have, just to continually calibrate my relationship with my phone, with social media, my spending. It’s a time to give myself space to ponder upon my life and values, how I spend my time, and what I should be putting first.
And now, it’s almost 6:00pm, and I can start making dinner—chicken and brown rice with young corn and bell peppers.