When Russia invaded Ukraine I abandoned my new year's resolution to stay away from social media. It had been slipping, and then it shattered. But you guys, the slippage and then the shattering have reminded me just how sensible a resolution it is. Trying to stay away from social media is like working in a building with a kiosk in the basement selling fries cooked in 1980s Crisco. You know they're terrible for you. You know trans fats are not your friends. You know you feel worse after you eat them. Maybe you should just have one when your friend offers to share hers with you? Maybe you should have them as an occasional treat? But somehow that smell keeps luring you in. You keep marching downstairs and declaring, "I'll have an extra-large!"
Lent is the perfect time for a social media reset, seems like. I am starting early, even, because I do not want to know how many of my Facebook friends are watching the state of the union address while wearing their "Let's Go Brandon" T-shirts.
The biggest thing I want to give up is not social media, though. I had been thinking about Lent in a vague and blurry way until last night, when my first attempt to take those vague and blurry ideas to prayer yielded an immediate response: I am going to give up complaining about people who are approaching the pandemic differently from me. I am going to stop muttering about masks and imputing bad intentions. I'll let you know how it goes.
For the first time I can remember I have no food-related Lenten plans, other than the ones the Church requires of me. Do you remember last summer when I told you about reading Intuitive Eating? I said "I have so many thoughts about this book -- it might change my life." It has absolutely changed my relationship with food, but in a way that still feels a little fragile, a little delicate. It is not a process that seems likely to be bolstered by inviting the opinions of internet strangers. (Almost everyone who comments here has been reading my thoughts for years; you are my internet pals, not internet strangers. Posting about one's food intake remains a pretty reliable way to bring unpleasant strangers out of the woodwork, though.) Anyway, I am disinclined to jeopardize the progress I've made on that front with arbitrary food rules.
Stella and Pete are both resolving to say Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours each day; Elwood is giving up alcohol, I think, though I am not certain about that. How about you? Any Lenten plans? Tell me all about them, please.
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