I’m giving up distractions for Lent. Well, actually, I’m giving up being distracted for Lent. Yeah. That worked for about the first three minutes after I woke up on Ash Wednesday. After that, I got distracted.
Lent has a bad reputation of being the season that everyone gives up something for forty days in hopes of making us into a better, more holier person by Easter. It’s kind of a re-start button for New Year’s resolutions. It’s only been five weeks since the ball dropped in Time Square, but most of us have already lost our resolve.
I’ve run the gamut of Lenten discipline from walking around my college campus with rocks in my shoe (because college students really don’t have real life suffering to offer up), to giving up chocolate and alcohol (Sundays don’t count). One Lent, my husband and I decided that spending three weeks in the pediatric ICU was enough fasting for a lifetime. I ate so much chocolate that Lent, just the thought of a chocolate Easter bunny made me sick.
Honestly, I began my Lenten preparation in January, as I was making my way through my new year resolutions. I realized that my speaking and retreat schedule was fairly quiet from mid January until mid March. It’s a good thing too, since winter has finally arrived and it may take me that long to figure out the KonMari folding method!
I saw this as a gift, some time to clear away the clutter in the house and organize my freelance work to become more productive at home and work. When I thought ahead about what to “do” this Lent, I figured I just continue this discipline of cleaning, organizing and add in some more time for prayer and study.
But the more I tried to focus on the external stuff, the more distracted I got. There was just so much to do and what seemed to be a lot of time, became little time when it was swallowed up in distractions.
While my distractions include some monumental practical issues, like losing all my daughter’s neuro doctors because of changes in our health insurance, they also include some stupid ones, like spending an hour searching for paperwork and stuff like car keys and gloves. Then there’s the painful distractions of misunderstandings between friends and family and knowing that because of advanced age and strokes, my mom is slowly slipping away.
What I realized in my pre-Lenten reflections is that the common denominator that ties all these distractions together is the intentions of the heart. Even some common disciplines and activities of Lent, like special Lenten prayer services and one more rosary can be one more distraction for me if they don’t help me to get to the intentions of my heart.
You see, it would be easier for me to check off the boxes; give up chocolate, wine, Facebook and fast from food on Fridays and call it “40 days well-done”. But it’s a little tougher to pay attention to the desires beneath them, what I call the intentions of the heart, and take a step further to change those intentions while I am changing habits.
Let me give you some practical examples. I considered giving up Facebook for Lent. Facebook can be a major distraction for me. But, it is a tool that I am grateful for at the same time. My kids live in different parts of the country now. But thanks to Facebook, I get little glimpses of their lives, sometimes even in real time, as they are visiting museums or taking hikes in the mountains.
I also belong to Facebook groups with other parents whose children struggle with the same diseases that affect my daughter. I’ve helped other mothers’ choose life rather than aborting babies with prenatal diagnoses and plugged them into resources to support them along the journey. These groups provide us all with strong support systems, even when we are a world away.
I’ve been involved in Presidential campaigns (November can’t come soon enough), shared resources with other writers and coaches and simply encouraged a few lonely souls to find hope in God to take the next step. Facebook is a powerful tool, in the hands of well-intentioned people.
If I gave it up for Lent, yes, I’d probably be less distracted. But I’d also be missing out on some life changing exchanges and I suspect that upon my return, I’d be distracted even more. Instead, I decided to stay with Facebook, but set limits on my posts, news feed and notifications. As with the chocolate, wine and even organizing the house, I’m examining the intentions of the heart.
Somewhere along the way I picked up a bad habit of reaching for my phone to read articles on Facebook as I’m drifting off to sleep. It gets awkward when I wake up at 2am to find out that I have accidently shared some spammy advertisement on my timeline!
For the last few weeks, I’ve been outlawing electronics in my bedroom and leaving only my bible and books to read beside my bed. After I’ve read myself towards slumber, I read the Psalms for night prayer. It’s a much more peaceful end to the day than catching up on the news, that’s for sure!
Ash Wednesday began with a very long day at the hospital. On the way home, I really wanted to stop for an ice cream, but instead, I kept driving, turned off the radio and looked at my heart. I realized that I really didn’t want the ice cream. I was just feeling stressed over having to start all over again with new doctors and sad that my daughter was having more headaches and some seizures.
Ice cream would have been a nice distraction and certainly God would understand. But as I examined those intentions, I knew in the end, ice cream couldn’t change my situation and in fact, the sugar overload could cause more discouragement in the end. So I intentionally chose to keep driving and pray for God to meet with more grace.
Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks, in his heart, so is he”. Lent only just began a few days ago. Already I’m tempted, to the point of distraction, to just do things the same old ways. But I know the secret to my 40 day fast is not so much the actions I take, but the intentions behind those actions which will lead me closer to a deeper transformation of the heart.
Eileen Benthal is a writer, speaker and wellness coach with a B.A. in Theology from Franciscan University. She is the author of Breathing Underwater: A Caregiver’s Journey of Hope.
Eileen and her husband Steve live in Jamesport and have four young adult children. Their youngest, Johanna, is a teenager with special needs.
Eileen can be reached at CareforaCaregiver.com.
