Not Just About Chocolate

Most of you know that I was raised Catholic, and the time of year where it is most noticeable that you are Catholic to non-Catholics is during lent. This was especially true for me since most of the people in my family were Southern Baptists. So at best, we were always a little weird during this time of year. Growing up, there wasn’t really this deeper understanding of what fasting during lent meant. For the most part, it was the time of year when you didn’t eat chocolate, or drink cokes, or eat candy. But it wasn’t until I got much older, and really tried to understand the meaning behind fasting, did the significance to fasting during lent really make sense.
There is so much more to fasting than just giving something up. The prophet Isaiah exclaims “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?” And we have learned, the answer to all of these questions is no. God does not call us to fast just for the sake of fasting. God calls us to be renewed people. God calls us to live as He created us to live. We know we fall short of those intentions often, and one of the major benefits of fasting during lent, is it allows us time to focus on the areas of our lives where we have not lived as God has intended us to live. It allows us to focus on the areas of our lives where we have grown apart from who God has created us to be. It allows us to notice the things in our life that we are running from. And THOSE things are the things that we fast from. Those are the things that we choose to give up for lent. Not just to start them back up in 40 days once Easter comes, but instead to use lent as a catalyst to transform our lives to be more like the people God has created us to be. For some of us, that may mean giving up trips to the mall. For some of us, that may mean less time with our best friend the television. For some of us that may mean stopping our visits to websites on the computer that we just shouldn’t be visiting. However, for some of us it may not be giving anything up at all. It could be taking on something that we need to take on to start walking toward the fulfilled life God calls us to. We could be called to spend more time with our family instead of our work. We could be called to intentionally step into scripture more often. We could be called to get into better shape, instead of taking these bodies that God has blessed us with for granted. We could be called to literally call the people in our lives who we know we have hurt and ask for forgiveness. I’m not sure what it is that you may have to take on or what you may have to give up for this lent. You may not know what it is. That is part of why we fast together on Thursdays, when our stomach grumbles and the hunger pains become more frequent, let them become for us our call to prayer. A prayer that God would show us the areas where we need true fasting, and a prayer asking for strength to take the steps to live the life He calls us to live. For you, you just may need to give up chocolate. But one thing we should know about fasting, it’s not just about chocolate.
(Copy and paste this address for the teaching about fasting from last year’s gathering into your address bar…please listen: http://ecclesiaclearlake.org/2010/02/ )

Practicing Disciplines

I have been very vocal about how much I was looking forward to our Lenten journey together as a community this year. I witnessed so much growth in myself and others in the group last year during this time that I longed for the opportunity to see that again. I anticipated the inevitable deep conversations, both on Thursdays, and just in general, about how we were experiencing God’s presence during Lent.
One of the things we chose to do was step into some of the same Spiritual discipline practices that we did together last year. So we have continued with the fasting (and sharing a meal) and with the daily prayer, and we decided to add to these disciplines the practice of Sabbath. But here is where the disconnect is for me. As with anything, when you choose to do something you need to know why you are doing it. Last year, we were teaching on Spiritual disciplines at our gatherings on Sunday, and we were reinforcing those teachings with conversations on Thursdays. The “why” was understood. But with a different focus at our gatherings and our Thursday conversations, I feel like maybe the “why” hasn’t been as evident as it could be. So I figured, what better way to use our new blog than to talk a little about why we have chosen to do what we do. So that is what I will do. First up…fasting.

Soft addictions

Hi guys,

I found this article on one of the blogs that I follow. I think it fits really well with the our previous discussions about our rocks in life. The author is not coming from a christian perspective, but I still think she raises some good points and give us food for thought.

Soft Addictions

by loveandfat

Do you love a certain show(s) and watch it religiously? Are you compelled to check Facebook first thing in the morning? Are you always holding a cup of coffee? Do you NEED to shop? Are you a little too good at video games?

These behaviors are actually considered soft addictions — a term coined by Judith Wright to describe “activities, moods or ways of being, avoidances, and things-edible and consumable but which do not pose a grave health disease risk – rather, they have the most effect on personal time and productivity.”

Apparently, over 90% of Americans have soft addictions and I’m not surprised by that statistic at all. I know I enjoy my excessive Internet browsing as much as the next person… and my fiance and I always turn on a movie when we eat dinner together. It’s just what we do to relax.

But then I thought, “How much more could I get done if I stopped watching movies every night and stopped checking facebook every morning?” I bet it’s a lot.

But then I think, “Hey, I need to relax, too!”

So, there’s a little battle going on in my head about the benefits of relaxation vs. productivity. Am I escaping reality when I really need to dig in and get something done?

I know there’s so much more to this topic but I just want to throw these questions out there:

1. What are your soft addictions?
2. Why do you do them?
3. Is it possible that they’re going beyond stress relief so that they’re problematic to your health or happiness?
4. Could you make a small change to your habits so you have more control over the compulsion?

I hope this gets us all thinking about what our soft addictions are and how we can make better use of our time.

~Becky

Sabbath during Lent

I wanted to post this as a comment to Amy's post, but I was having difficulty...

Amy, while navigating to the "Real Fast of Lent" link that you provided, I had a sabbath moment in the middle of lent. Traveling for the past few weeks has been a massive hassle and has put me under more stress than when I was looking for a contract (that's a lot). It wasn't anything epic...it was just the music that was playing as part of the site.

It just allowed me to stop. I worked on uncurling my fingers from the things that I thought I was in control of and stopped gritting my teeth.

Control is one of my big rocks. I need a hammer to bust it up into little pieces. I have been struggling w/ this for a while and thought I had a handle on it, but it looks like I still have a long way to go.

Exacerbating the whole issue is not being home w/ Amy, Xander, & Aubree. I'm not there. Enough said.

These are my big rocks and, as we are going through the season of letting go, I need help doing that.

And while I'm here, to reiterate what I said last Thursday night...I'm happy that Patrick and Melissa are taking a step back...to fight against their decision would not be in the spirit of what we are learning during lent...letting go...fighting for someone to grow in spirit and encouraging them to do what they feel God wants them to do can be complimentary and contradicting at the same time...we are not in control.

Wanted to Share

Ok, so twice this week I have read some really amazing posts by others. and really wanted to share them with you guys. One in a newsletter and one on a blog. I was going to forward it to you guys in an email but I was afraid Jody would scold me again! So, I am going to post the links here. I hope you guys find them as interesting as I did.

This one shares one woman's lesson learned through Lent. She shares an experience as a mother but I think we can all relate to her inner struggle of dying to her self.

And this one over here is something my sister sent out today in honor of St. Patrick's Day. You all have probably heard me talking about them moving to Ireland so of course today is special to her. I just enjoyed the reminder of those who have gone before us and presevered to do what we strive to do today.

So, hope this was appropriate to share in the venue. If not- oh well....Love you guys and look forward to gathering with you tonight.

Prayer Offices

I found it! I know it's not quite what we talked about doing as a group but I found it interesting and I think I will try and incorporate this practice somehow. I just thought I would share with you all. In it's most basic form it is praying three times a day:

Morning- The Lord's Prayer

12:00 Noon- Psalm 23

Evening- Psalm 117

 

There is more to it so here is the link if you are interested.....

Praying the Hourly Offices 

Time

So I think this is a discussion that we cannot allow to just pass us by. Because, as much as any other discussion we have, everything is wrapped up in how we choose to use the time that we have been given. So much of the time we feel like we just can't add anything else to our lives, it seems as if we are barely keeping our heads above water. I guess the question that we have to ask is the same question Andy Stanely asked in his teaching (http://www.northpoint.org/messages/time-of-your-life) that we watched, what is our priorities? Or as the analogy says, what are our "big rocks"? I believe it is easy to say what our priorities are, because we know what the answers are supposed to be. I wonder if we gave ourselves a reality check, if the answers would be the same. I have heard many people say, "if you want to know what you care about let me see your checkbook." I would add to it, "let me see your checkbook and calendar." An easy indication of where I priorities are can be found by looking at where we spend our money and our time. And honestly, I'm not sure if we really want to look that closely, because we know we may just find something that we don't like. What is a higher priority for us, God's kingdom or facebook (using Stanely's example)? What is a higher priority for us, true relationships or television? What is a higher priority for us, dependence on God or dependence on ourselves?

One of the things that I appreciated about Stanely's analogy is he didn't say that we have to remove all of these things that we have engrained into our lives like facebook and television. Instead, the call is to reprioritize our lives around the things that God has called us to make a priority. In our MC's we categorize these things as Communion, Community, and Mission. That doesn't mean we have to completely give up facebook, or television, or slow-pitch softball, it just means we have to put things into our jars in the proper order.

So where are your priorities? What are your "big rocks"? Before you answer, actually take a look at your checkbooks and calendars. I look forward to the discussion.