Is Anybody Giving Up Anything For Lent?

I don't want to give up drink, but I might give up chocolate. I always give up chocolate, though, ever since I was a little girl. I can remember one year I gave up chocolate and Star Trek and used to miss the end of Emergency so that I wouldn't even see the little preview in case of going to hell.

It was quite a revealing and amusing experience. During this time I drank pint of lime and soda or blackcurrant and soda. The prices of these drinks seemed to vary enormously in pubs - anything from 10p to £1.20!

x-post yeah, giving up drinking is an odd experience. Not just the price variance but you realise what pubs are actually shit, but only tolerable with copious amounts of alcohol.

It's strange, the number of odd childhood religion things that have stayed with me. Eating pizza on Fridays. You're not supposed to eat meat on Fridays (not just Lent, any time of the year) - so my school would always serve pizza, and my mum would make either pizza or vegetarian lasagne on Fridays.

To this day, I automatically think of Friday as just being the day that you should eat pizza as a semi-religious thing.

when i was at (catholic) boarding school we used to have to write our lunch order on a paper bag before school then go and collect it from the dining room at lunchtime. i don't know how many times i accidentally ordered ham and cheese on fridays and just got bread and butter. so devastating to open up your lunchbag and find that in there! and shitty fish and chips for dinner. yuk.

xpost

A period of self denial does make you appreciate life more when it ends.

I don't really trust this theory: binge drinking, binge eating, dieting in general etc.

And also it takes so much less to get off on your vice when you go back to it after a period of abstinence. Contrary to binging, you get pissed off a single glass of wine, or a lovely sugar rush off a single brick of chocolate.

Maybe I will give up Step Delay for Lent. Or Hawkwind. No, not Hawkwind, that would be too hard.

So what do you think the national dish of Italy is then?

My boss here told us about the Sundays off thing. First time that I've heard of it in Ireland.

No, I wouldn't make it 40 days.

i know! buying stuff from BAD supermarkets (ie all except waitrose), even wine, pasta, cheese etc.

i like this one.

I can't imagine trying to give up CHEESE.

meat

I should give up buying food with food miles outside of the UK. Though I might actually starve if I did that with my local supermarket. But that's *so* Guardian reader, isn't it?

GENIUS! oh no this will be so hard. what am i gonna do without my daily BACON?

I should give up buying food with food miles outside of the UK. Though I might actually starve if I did that with my local supermarket. But that's *so* Guardian reader, isn't it?

this is a good idea too! and yeah, you prob would starve if you did it at sainsbury's, but that's sort of the point of lent, no? that your life is meant to get less nice/more inconvenient in some way. and dude brixton market ROXOR.

But how can I know the origin of things like tomatoes in tomato paste or the coconuts in coconut cream. It gets absurd. But I could try to do it with fresh veg, which is the important bit.

KATE IT IS LIKE A FIVE MINUTE BUSRIDE! or a 45 minute walk, or something.

But how can I know the origin of things like tomatoes in tomato paste or the coconuts in coconut cream. It gets absurd. But I could try to do it with fresh veg, which is the important bit.

i think they put it on the box, but i also think you can safely assume coconut cream comes from outside the uk. probably the tomatoes are dutch or spanish too.

I have a friend whose Lenten vows involve giving up all food eaten without saying grace (meaning she can eat anything, but must pray first) and worry about being single (meaning she is going to view her relationship with God as most important, and view self-pity over lack of romantic prospects as "cheating" for the duration of Lent). I think these are very thoughtful, based on the problems she has in her life and faith right now, and would like to have that positive thoughtful aspect as well because it would be so meaningful. I know awfully little about the Bible, and might consider "giving up" half an hour a day to read it and pray as a good idea.

Wow I think I sound like a religious freak. Don't hurt me ILX! Easter is really cool and important!

Don't worry, Maria, everyone religious sounds like a freak to me. But as far as I remember, the significance of Ash Wednesday is to remind you of your mortality and get you thinking about the fact that you will die and your corporeal good-time self will go into the ground and be nothing, and so it is time for you to consider your soul. This prepares you to spend the next 40 days and nights making sacrifices and doing good works and thinking about Jesus, who went into the desert and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, (except on St. Patrick's Day, when he came out of the desert and had a Twix) to prepare himself for dying.

I actually think that atheists should co-opt Ash Wednesday completely. What could be more atheist than a day that makes you face your mortality and consider your legacy?

I'm trying to remember the symbolism of Lent - it was the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus spent in The Desert being tempted by Satan or something like that. And we're supposed to be fasting in sympathy or something. Except it's kind of hard to fast for 40 days straight - you'd kind of die. So you just give up a symbolic thing as a symbolic fast.

it teaches you self restraint! And patience! And all those other good virtues. At least that was the story they told me. (Clearly never worked.)

er.

i dunno, i'm not remotely religious, i think it is silly (but yes yes respect the rights of other blah). but i quite like doing stuff like this.

The Catholic/Orthodox version of Lenten fasting isn't total not eating anything fasting though, it's only being able to eat like one full meal a day and two less-than-half-meals, and sometimes restrictions on meat and dairy or days of bread and water or total fasts. So you don't starve, but fasting doesn't have that narrow a meaning anyway. (I looked stuff upon this last night. Yay for wikipedia and outside links.)

A couple years ago I gave up meat for Lent and it was actually quite easy, but the great thing about it was that every time I had a meal, I had to think about what I was eating, and why, and therefore think about God at every meal. In my mind that's the use of giving up something for Lent, having to turn your mind to the bigger picture by the break in your routine when it would normally be turned to something small like a piece of chicken on such a regular basis. Of course it wasn't actually a struggle so I didn't gain any of the benefits of self-restraint, but oh well. Still haven't decided, and it starts tomorrow....

Oh, and coffee from the machine at work.

Or Evening Standard reader. Two days ago the Standard had a whole tabloid spread about one of their reporters going cold-turkey on supermarkets.

Would this actually make sense if it became widespread?

It's more for me about buying stuff that is actually in season (albeit from a supermarket) and paying attention to that sort of thing, rather than buying, say, beans from Kenya because I've suddenly got a craving for them.

not necessarily, shit moves all over the country between depots etc too.

Also I decided what I'm giving up: excessive negativity and unnecessary comparisons of myself to others, both unpleasant features of my life in which I frequently, guiltily delight. (I know this is necessary because I mentioned it to a friend and she jumped and yelled, "YESSSSSS!")

Also, burger vans. I predict this not to last past, ooh, next Saturday.

Damn, they extended Iraq in Fragments' run in Mpls. I guess that's good enough reason.

Oh noes I forgot about my dodgy burger vans. I'll have to turn into a chips'n'cheese ned.