Lenten Sacrifice

Today is the last day of Lent.  As practicing Catholics, we choose to practice personal sacrifice (among other things) during the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter.  We do this not because we think it makes us 'more worthy' of Jesus' sacrifice, because hello!  Nothing could ever make us worthy of the gift he gave us by sacrificing his very life for us.  We do it because fasting is a time-honored method for clearing one's mind and making oneself aware of the abundance around us.  It's  a way of clearing out the cobwebs and inviting God into our hearts.

 

People who trade a typical American diet for a 'clean' one will tell you that no amount of money would have convinced them that an apple was a sweet treat, compared to all the sugary garbage they regularly ate.  But take the high fructose corn syrup away (as painful as that transition is) and eating a ripe apple becomes a rewarding treat, an almost enlightening experience!

 

So it is with Lent - by practicing the three pillars; fasting, prayer and almsgiving, we can purge ourselves of some of the spiritual clutter that gets in the way of our relationsip with God. 

 

Frankly, we should do this all the time, not just during Lent. 

But 40 days is a good start. 

Kind of like a new year's resolution for your soul.

 

In years past, I've blogged about what we were doing for Lent at the beginning.

But it never felt right to me.  Kind of like the 'sackloth and ashes' hypocrites spoken of in the Bible, who looked fantastically pious and sacrificial to others, when in in reality their hearts were unclean. 

Better, I thought, that I should blog about Lenten sacrifice at the END of Lent, when we'd actually DONE it, than in the beginning when it was all cheap idealism.

So now that it's done, I feel more prepared to write about it.

 

What did we give up for Lent this year?

 

The Granddaddy of them all...

ELECTRONICS!

 

That meant no TV.

No computer.

No Wii

No XBox

No DSi

No iPod

No iPad

No i-anything.

 

I thought my kids were going to die of shock when I told them.
So we gave them a few little nuggets to keep them going.

Friday Family Movie Night
We busted out the popocorn and turned on the TV each Friday night.
Our movie was Mom-chosen and most of the time Mom chose Veggietales. 
Before going on our 'clean diet', they would have spat out Veggietales like that apple I alluded to earlier.  But without TV clogging their brains all week like high fructose corn syrup, Ben and Molly fell in LOVE with Veggietales!  Jack, notsomuch.  You can't win 'em all...

No-Sacrifice Sundays
Sundays are technically not Lent, so we let the kids EARN up to two hours of electronics time by doing things like cleaning their rooms, finishing their homework, packing their bags for school Monday morning, and doing extra chores.  Just knowing they had this coming to them helped them get through the week, and it sure lit a fire under them to do their chores come Sunday morning!  Jack even did his on Saturday, just to be ready (I know, I could hardly believe it myself!)

 

Marc chose not to join us on the adventure, so the TV was also on for weekend sports

(which the kids and I don't appreciate anyway so it didn't derail our efforts).

 

As for me, I kept my iPhone going for phone calls, email, directions and texting,

because I was afraid I'd miss somethimg important

like a call from school or Marc.

In hindsight, I can see that only about 5% of what I do with my phone is essential.  While I managed to cut out about 50% of what I do with my phone, by deleting my Facebook app for instance, I could have, should have, and plan to cut out more in the future.

 

I also kept my laptop going for blogging and family photography,

but other things crept in

(curse you, Google!) 

Next year, Google will have to be banned outright,

because I'm the queen of justification

and I can manufacture a 'need' at will

even if it's really just a 'want' I need to fill.

 

Without all the electronics going,

I was terrified that I'd have three bored kids

up my nose every day begging for TV or something to do.
Because I was so NOT able to be Julie McCoy, cruise director,
with sweet Maeve needing my attention 24/7.

I figured it would be a bumpy road, and might get ugly at times. 

I was pleasantly surprised that was not the case!

What I DID find, was that minutes, and sometimes HOURS would go by when I would wonder, "What are they up to, it's so quiet!"

 

And I'd find them doing this...

 

 

 

 

In fact, there was so much reading going on, I wasn't sure our library bag could handle it all!

I took the boys one day when Molly had an art camp,

and they couldn't wait to get home to read their books.  They had to start right that minute!

 

 

 

 

 

 At one point, our stacks of books in the Family Room needed to be organized into three separate piles.  One for magazines, one for library books, and one for seasonal books from our own collection that I like to drag out at appropriate times of year.
 

 

There was also fort building...

 

 

 

 More crafting and drawing than you can shake a stick at. 
In fact, I'm pretty sure we used up every last piece of printer paper in the city.  I finally had to start rationing it!

 

 Quite a bit of pretend play...

 

The dread pirate "Bat Toad"

 

 some cooking and baking too.

This picture is Ben's 'breakfast in bed' creation that he brought to me one morning.

 

 

here's another...

 

 

He was very serious about making it a 'healthy breakfast' so he offset

the muffin with fresh produce and some milk
 (and ranch dressing for the carrots - he thought of everything!)

 

We played with toys that haven't seen action in a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And even made some new ones...

 

 You have no idea how hard it is to find reasonably priced Ghostbusters paraphernalia! Slimer on a stick was Ben's own creation - I just helped with finding the image to print out and color.

 

We let the kids start blogging
and making their own video tutorials and movies
(yes, technically the camcorder is an electronic, but it's not a mindless one, like TV or video games, and it helped foster their creativity, so we let them roll with it.)

 

Lest you think this Lent was all creativity, rainbows and unicorns, let me be honest and say that there was plenty of MESS (creativity comes at a price, you know?).  In fact, at times it threatened my sanity.  I've gained 10 pounds during Lent from staying up late to catch up on work that I couldn't do doing daylight hours because I spent all that time cleaning up messes (late night eating is my nemesis, as the Cheez-Its I'm eating right now prove).

 

For example...

 

 Shudder....I'm getting nauseous just looking at these.

 

In addition to the mess, there was lots of sibling squabbling too.  The cost of so much time spent together is grating on each others nerves.  Case in point; tomorrow Ben will be sporting his Easter best along with a nice bruise on his cheek, courtesy of Molly's knee.  Apparently he was bothering her, but it was an accident (meaning she meant to kick him, but not to leave a mark and make him cry...ugh!)

 

So tomorrow as Lent ends, you will hear a sigh of relief from ALL of us, for a variety of reasons.  But lessons WERE learned.

 

Some of the lessons this Lenten sacrifice taught me were;

 

1. My kids can do just fine without electronics, thrive even!

 

2. I like my kids WAY MORE when they are not begging and whining for electronics.

 

3. They have spectacular imaginations, and are able to entertain themselves for long periods of time, alone and dare I say it, together!  Seeing this makes my Mommy heart happy :)

 

4. Our whole family needs to reevaluate how much time we spend on electronics, because while there are benefits to using them, they can/may/do cause us to check out of real life and our relationships with the people around us. 

 

5. Marc and I have to be RUTHLESS as parents to make sure that electronics overuse and the begging and whining it can lead to are not tolerated EVER.  We've told the kids that when Easter comes, we may allow electronics back into our lives, but that if they don't follow the rules, there will be no second chances and they'll be cut off for the day, period.

 

 Now none of this sacrifice, as interesting an experiment as it was, brought us closer to God.

What DID bring us closer to God, and helped us focus on Jesus' sacrifice, were the talks we had and the prayers we said together using the reclaimed time we had, thanks to the things we gave up.  I taught the kids about the rosary, and we worked our way up to saying a decade at a time together. We talked daily about why Jesus died and why Easter is the most important holiday for us as Christians.

 

But we could have done more.

So we will.

 I'm not waiting until next Lent to put into practice some of the things I learned during these 40 days and nights.  They are going live right now.  Like New Year's Resolutions, not all of them will stick, but hopefully some of them will work for us well enough to stay for the long term so that next Lent we won't have to start over at square one.

 

In the end, we'll never be worthy of Jesus' sacrifice.

But we never needed to be.

That's what MERCY is about.

The mercy of a God who walked among us, who was one of us, who suffered for our sins, and died for US, so that our sins may be forgiven. 

And on the third day, He rose from the dead.  It doesn't get awsomer than that!

 

Happy Easter Everyone!