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And unto dust I shall return

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Though I'm a lapsed Catholic and an atheist, I still believe in the ritual of fasting/denial. I think giving something up, denying oneself, focuses the mind and forces you to examine yourself. And so I want to give something up for Lent.

I'm thinking of giving up meat, but I'm not sure if it's entirely practical. (I've given up meat for a week at a time before, but certainly never for 40 days (46 with Sundays) before. Perhaps give up red meat? Or use the christian definition of meat and give up everything but fish? I'm not sure.

Does anyone else plan on denying themselves? Have any tales of fasting to share with me?

Did anyone eat a Pączki today? I forgot to get one. Hmm, perhaps I'll get a discount if I seek one out tomorrow...

Should I give up sweets instead?

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In the spirit of the ritual, you should do without something you really don't think you could do without. It's a test of wills and that's always something good for anyone to do. Consider you competing against yourself. :D

Trust me: giving up almost any sort of foodstuff will be a battle of wills! I love to eat.

I can make it through most of a week without craving any meat, but by the end I'm glad for some chicken. Giving up sweets would certainly be good for me...

Hmm. It's a tough decision! 46 days is a long time.

It is but anything good for you usually is. Want some company. I'm not going to give up anything, but I have a new work out program that requires 20 minutes daily so I guess giving up 20 minutes or more of my day to this workout would count. I hate exercising, like the intense exercise that will be required for this.

Forty-six days huh? I can do this.

You can count on me for motivation! (I really should chuck exercise in with whatever else I decide to give up! But baby steps...baby steps!)

I really should have allowed myself more than two hours to decide this! :P Maybe I'll start on Thursday and give myself all of tomorrow to decide.

Oh nice. Whatever you decide let me know and I'll join you. :D

LET'S DO THIS THING! (I'll keep you posted!)

OK!

I totally took this to mean that I have tonight and tomorrow as a reprieve from actually starting the program. :D

I looked for Paczki, but I couldn't find any! :( It's one of the things I miss about Chicago.

I have to say, as a Jew in Catholic school, Ash Wednesday resonated with me more than most of the other holidays. But I was also a teenager, so maybe I was predisposed to like the angsty bit.

As to what to give up: what do you want to improve? What do you think you don't pay enough attention to? What will make you more aware of the world/yourself in a different way?

I have friends that refused to buy anything new during lent-or refused to wear more than one outfit (that they washed regularly :P). I know others that gave up the internet-it forced them to realize exactly how they were spending their time. Meat's a good one, but you don't want to do something that's too easy, or too impossible for yourself.

Edited 2011-03-09 03:21 (UTC)

Hmm, wow, everyone already has really good thoughts for how I should decide what to give up!

I probably should give up the internet, but fortunately, I have a good excuse not to! :P (I'm running a spring fanworks festival in one of my comms.) Meat was pretty easy for me to do without for a week, but 46 days? I don't know. Sweets would be good for me...I've definitely been eating too many of those lately. Though I don't know that giving them up will make me more aware of myself and my place in the world!

I like the idea of not buying anything new, though I'd have to have a think about whether or not there's anything I'd need to buy in the new couple months...

Ash Wednesday is awesome for angst. I used to love going to mass to get ashes! As much as I'm not well-suited to religion, I do like ritual, and there are some I miss from my childhood.

I can't speak to Lent specifically, but most cultures seem to suggest fasting as an exercise in self-discipline. I'm an infrequently-observant Hindu, and Eastern thought on the subject is that denial allows you to access your inner spirituality without distraction.

For myself, I've only fasted with any consistency at one point in my life. I was a senior in college, and I stopped eating salt one day a week on the advice of my grandmother. I did it for about two years, actually, and it was a good experience, actually.

I've given up meat for a week at a time a few times in my life. It's a great way to really examine your lifestyle, and what you eat! I know I ate healthier for those times. Fasting in general is a great way to become more aware of what you do and why you do it.

Salt, huh? Was it just salt from a shaker you gave up, or salty foods as well?

It was anything with salt in it. So basically, all processsed food, pretty much all cooked food and most non-natural beverages. Because I could never be sure what foods had salt in them when I ate out, it also ensured that I didn't eat out that one day of the week.

It was an interesting experiment. The giving up salt wasn't as hard as remembering I'd given it up and not eating an offending thing by accident, lol.

This is something I've been thinking about myself. It would be my first time participating in Lent, and I'm still trying to decide what to give up. I do have one idea, but I'm pretty reluctant to give it up...which is probably a sign that it would a good thing to pick.

Also, the Pączki? I admit, I had to Google the word, but wow - they look delicious!

I forget that pączki aren't common Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras fare all over the country! Where I live, they're inextricably linked: in fact, a lot of people call it Pączki Day! (And if you're wondering how to pronounce it, it's poonch-key!) Michigan has a big Polish population, so that's probably why.

Yeah, it's hard to decide what to deny yourself! You want it to be difficult enough to make it meaningful, but not so hard that you're miserable and cave a week or two in.

I'm pretty ashamed that I forgot about Pączki today. There's a wonderful little bakery on the west side that I've gone to for years. They always run out, too, so my chances of finding some tomorrow are slim (darn you, Chicago, and your devotion to Pączki!)

I usually give something up for Lent, but I'm not sure what to give up this year either. I usually give up sweets, which has gotten kind of easy, but most of the other things I want to give up (being too lazy to look for another job, for example) aren't really... "things" as such.

I didn't even realize what day it was until a seven year-old student (out of nowhere) asked me: "Do you celebrate Mardi Gras?" (Turns out, he was looking forward to eating pączki for dessert when he got home.) By the time I get off work, all the bakeries are shut! And it's not worth making a special trip to Meijer or some such place.

Have you thought of giving up meat? It's challenging, but also fun to come up with creative meatless meals.

I probably should give up drinking, but after my dad's party, we are now fully stocked with wine, and hey: somebody's gotta drink it! :P I think sweets might be the way to go, but then: how am I going to define "sweets"? Can I still have raisin bran for breakfast?

That's the ridiculous thing. I remembered several times that it was Mardi Gras (and then forgot several times), but for some reason that never properly connected with Pączki Day.

I eat meat maybe once or twice a week right now (once or twice a month if you use the "fish is not meat" definition), so being a real vegetarian wouldn't take much of an effort. Maybe I should give up working overtime? That'd be pretty difficult (though the net result would be increased misery during the 8 hours I'm at work, I think). (-;

I usually define sweets as things that are predominantly sugar-based and/or are marketed based on the appeal of their sweetness (mostly I target chocolate). Otherwise I'd have to give up all the fruit I eat (and I basically live on fruit... it's bad). I don't think raisin bran would be a sin, but something like Frosted Flakes would be.

I'm not a big meat-eater, either: when I lived on my own, I hardly ever ate it! But my parents eat a highly meat-based diet, hence my difficulties in giving it up.

I think I could use your definition of sweets! As long as I could have the occasional bowl of cereal, and perhaps a PB&J sandwich everyone once in awhile, I might make it.

You should give up working overtime, for sure! If you tell your bosses it's a religious thing, they'll be unable to refuse you.

I wonder if that's a difference between generations, or if it's a parents thing... My parents are big meat-eaters, too. I can't think of many meals we had at home that didn't involve meat pretty prominently. I kind of gave up meat because it was expensive and I was poor after college, but I rather like meatless meatballs and baked tofu and eggplant parmesean. (It's probably much easier to eat vegetarian now than it used to be, though. I remember when I had my gradeschool vegetarian phase (does everyone have one of those?) and it was all bean soup as far as the eye can see. There certainly weren't frozen gluten-free veggie burritos or anything.)

Go for it! (Jelly might be cheating, but I'm not going to call you on it. Especially if you have preserves or something fancy. In fact, I found wonderful "sugar-free" jelly at one of our farmers' markets here, which used grape juice instead of refined sugar, which certainly means it doesn't count as a 'sweet' right? (-;)

It's a shame I already admitted to my bosses that I'm a nondenominational heathen. Next job I'll know better.

But Carrie: it is never too late to find religion! (Or so I've been told...) Just remember that! :P (Do heathens have denomenations? I always thought we were just...heathens.)

Yes! Meat is so expensive! A big reason why I didn't eat much of it. (In fact, I'm pretty sure there was a year when I existed solely on cereal, rice & beans, and mac & cheese.)

I think it is a generational thing. My mother's standard meal is Hunk of Meat + Carbohydrate Side + Vegetable. (Which I enjoy, but only once in awhile. I'm a big tofu fan as well.)

I have homemade jelly! Which is...somehow more virtuous than store-bought jelly and therefore allowed. Right? :P

I think heathen denominators depend on the point of view. After all, I think pagans are technically heathens from a traditional Christian point of view. Therefore it's important for me to to note the freelance nature of my heathenness.

The evolution of dinners is pretty interesting. My mom likes to go on and on about how her parents never deviated from the meat-vegetable-potato theme, and no one ever thought of making stir-fry, or anything vaguely ethnic. It's just so weird to me. Then again, I live alone and don't have to worry about anyone else's dietary needs, either, so I can follow random whims without regard to anyone else's tastes.

Homemade jelly definitely gets a loophole. What kind do you make? I basically have to beg my mom every summer to send me some of her grape jelly (from our own vines, even. Though we didn't get any jelly last year since our neighbors negotiated a deal to make wine). The jelly I miss most, though, is the tart jelly we used to make from the cherry tree we had in the yard of the house where I grew up. It was wonderful, and I can't find anything like it anywhere (most cherry jelly/jam is way too sweet).

Therefore it's important for me to to note the freelance nature of my heathenness.

True! We may be going to hell to hell, but we will not be going to any specific hell! (You know, I have a theory about religion kicking around my brain that says the invention of Hell is what led christianity to become the most dominant of the world religions. No one ever gets in your face and threatens you if you deny the existence of Vishnu, and I really think that's where the Hindus dropped the ball.)

I really, really miss living alone and eating whatever the hell I wanted. I used to just grab random items from the refrigerator to make a meal out of. "Hmm, tonight: microwave popcorn, strawberry yogurt, and baby carrots for dinner! Yay!"

I made raspberry jelly (which was the BEST!) and mixed berry, using up bags of frozen berries I had in the freezer, some strawberries I had lying around, etc. I didn't grow the raspberries myself, but went to a "Pick Your Own" farm to gather them. It took FOREVER, as the bushes were rather picked over, but SO worth it!

My grandmother used to make grape jelly from her own vines! She used to seal the jars with a disk of wax. I have a lot of fond memories of that jelly. (She had raspberry bushes, too, which is why I got used to eating them by the handful and am immensely frustrated at how little you can buy in the story for so much money.)

Mmm, tart cherry jelly sounds FANTASTIC! You should come to Michigan: we're the countries largest producer of tart cherries (TRUFAX!) and you always find them at the farmer's markets.

I've always liked the idea of giving something up for Lent more as a test of my willpower than anything else, but… turns out I don't have any willpower. XD

I, personally, would actually die if I gave up sweets, so I cannot in good faith recommend that. As far as general health, I wouldn't recommend giving up meat, either… ~~Maybe giving up reading porny fic? Although that would probably only matter for people like me, lulz ~~I GOT NOTHIN. :(~~~~

I am NOT big on willpower! Which is why I have to make Big, Meaningful Declaration whenever I want to cut back on something! :P

NO ONE IS TAKING MY PORN AWAY! Not when I've just discovered Firefly, and have yet to find the stash of good porn for it!

pączki! Whoa. I used to live in Pittsburgh, where they were certainly not a mainstream thing, but some of the old folk would always talk about them, and every so often you'd run into someone who actually made them/knew where to get them. I had no idea they were like a BIG THING elsewhere!!

It's a shame I'm late to this party, since I presume ;) you've already decided. Are you going with(out) the meats or the sweets??

Fasting is gonna become the next pilates/vegetarian/feng shui American fad sometime soon, I'd bet money on it. You alter your usual habits for a set period of time, not for a tendentious purpose (like dieting or cutting down on energy as an environmetally-conscious exercise) but simply to become more self-aware and self-controlled. All the women's magazines would have a field day with it. In fact, I suspect it already happened, and I was just too young/too unalive to see it...

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And unto dust I shall return

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