Tag: Fasting

Nouns and Verbs

Before my current experiment of fasting from Facebook, I saw Lent in terms of the thing to be given up…sweets, or coffee, or beer, or Facebook.  It was about the “nouns” so to speak.  The thinking was if I denied myself some particular noun, it would be an offering of sorts to God, as if God would be pleased by the absence of that thing in my life for those 40 days.  That perspective would fit with the material nature of my western worldview.  We have a tendency to see the world through the colored lenses of nouns.  We objectify our lives by identifying them in terms of the nouns with which we surround ourselves…our cars, our address, our clothes, our friends, our job, etc.  The practice of adding some discipline helps counter this…adding a more regular prayer time, daily Scripture study, writing more regularly, etc.   These practices seem to help move ones focus from the nouns.

The real “rubber hits the road” moment for me in all this fasting stuff is the moment of decision, not at the front end of Lent, but daily. There is a choice to be made every time I open a web browser…to login or not.  Which choice will I make?  Ultimately it’s not about the actual state of being logged in or logged out.  Each choice made is an opportunity for prayer…for worship.  Isn’t that what the whole idea of “pray without ceasing” is all about?  The spiritual formation is instilled in the particular choice made. M. Robert Mulholland defines spiritual formation as “A process of being conformed to the image of Christ for he sake of others.” (Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation).  This “being conformed” thing is a journey…a process…an action…a verb.

C.S. Lewis says this so much better:

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.  To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.  Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I’m learning to view lent in terms of choices.

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Lonely

…the continuing saga of a Facebook Fast…

I travel a good deal with my job.  I regularly commute to Murfreesboro from my home in Tullahoma (about 40-45 minutes each way).  On Thursday, I had an appointment in Nashville and I began the routine drive after dropping my son off at the High School.  About 30 minutes into my trip, I became aware on how alone I felt.  I frequently drive in my car with no one in the passenger seats.  Things were normal from that standpoint.  But on this day, I was aware of a different quality to the empty car. I had logged out…no Facebook.

I have likened Facebook to non-Facebook friends to being in a large room with acquaintances from all periods of my life.  There is the constant buzz of conversations going on in this room.  At any point in time, I can choose to join in a conversation or start a new one.  These conversations range from silly to sublime.  Family, sports, spirituality, politics, news, religion, art, music, books, reunions… The list is endless.  Sometimes, you just want to sit in the room and relax with your thoughts.  But always, there is the comforting buzz of family, close friends, high school and college buddies, church members, work colleagues, etc.

What became vividly clear during these first few days of the Facebook fast was that I had stepped out of that room.  I had closed the door.  A deep sense of silence and a different quality of “alone” permeated my empty car.  I know how this might sound a little crazy to the folk that have been trying to intervene in my Facebook thing.  But the effect was profound.

There are several implications to this but I’ll mention two.  First, I have rarely been truly alone over the past year or so.  Being connected “virtually” via my cell phone and social media is something significantly more real than I realized.  I’ve missed the renewed relationships with people from my past.  I’ve recognized that conversations with my friends locally are enhanced and deepened via social media.  Rather than typical small talk, on Facebook we move on to snarky comments and humor.  We also begin to ask the second level questions and make comments that move conversations to deeper levels than might happen when we merely bump into each other in the grocery store.  I also have become more aware of why the most brutal from of punishment for a teenager these days is taking away their cell phone.  In a way, it places them in “solitary confinement”.  I think at times, that’s exactly the punishment that is called for in a situation.  However, it also might be more extreme than the situation calls for.  I need to think a little more about this next time parental justice comes down.

The second thing I’ll mention is that…well, I’ve rarely been truly alone over the past year or so.  Rather than solitude and quiet, I’ve taken comfort in the noisy room.  I think true solitude is something extremely important and is in fact missing from my spiritual life.  I don’t think merely logging off of Facebook is going to provide the solitude that I’m talking about here.  I fill the space constantly with podcasts, music, email, newspapers, magazines, TV, YouTube, etc.  We are constantly barraged with media, information…noise.  I think this constant sensory overload might just be overwhelming the still small voice of God’s Spirit…of my own spirit.

Withdrawals

So I’ll confess…I’m addicted to the little red flag that signals a response to something on my Facebook page.  The Internet browser I use is Apple Safari.  Normally I have a tab open with my Gmail account, another tab with Facebook, and then any additional tabs I might use for surfing the Internet, checking out the news of the day or to do research for the tasks of the day.  In addition, I have my mail app and my Facebook app adjacent to each other on the home screen of my iPhone with “push notifications” turned on.  What this means to the non-techno-geeks out there is that I’m aware practically immediately whenever someone posts a message to my wall or sends me an email message.

One of my motivations for this Facebook fast was my increasing awareness of my addiction.  While the designation of addiction might seem to be a little melodramatic, I have to admit that it fits.  The simple definition of being addicted to something is to be physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance leading to adverse effects when that substance is taken away.

On Ash Wednesday night, not 30 minutes after my “final” sign-off…I recognized I had a problem.  My Bible Study group at church has a fairly active Facebook group (our page is not as active as the Facebook Group but here’s a link).  I intended to post scripture passages and prayers daily leading up to our class time last Sunday (March 14, 2011).  I knew there was a way to post to the group via email that would keep me from having to login to my account.  But I didn’t know the proper email address and I didn’t know the procedure.  So I innocently logged in…and there was the little red flag…with a 7 on it!  I couldn’t resist…I had to see who had commented on my wall.  The next morning…I “needed” to make sure my Bible Study post was up…same thing…red flag…my mouse could have simply clicked the Bible Study Group link…

Well…the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Facebook Fast

“Really?!?”, replied my wife.   “I don’t believe you!” commented my daughter on my last post before signing off Facebook for Lent 2011.  I have to admit, I was at best skeptical.

A little context/confession here…I’ve never completed a Lenten fast.  I’ve only tried it one time before.  I was a “fail” as the kids like to say.  I couldn’t even tell you at this moment what I failed to give up for lent that year.    More context/confession…I’m a Facebook junkie.  I was a very early adopter.  Facebook opened membership to anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address in September of 2006.  I was aware of Facebook on college campuses prior to that time.  I opened my own Facebook account in the Summer of 2007.  That puts me pretty much in the Total-Facebook-Geek category in most people’s books.  I check it on my computer, on my phone, while I’m at the office, while I’m driving in my car…just about anywhere.

Part of this lent deal for our church this year was to “give up something” but also, add something.  As I’m writing this, I’m aware of my failure in the add category…I was going to write more consistently…fail.

So the doubts of my wife and daughter are pretty much justified.  I’m still pretty skeptical about the chances of my success with the Facebook portion of this thing.   Here goes nothing…