Gave up Dr. Pepper for Lent. Minimum amount of Mt Dew is staving off the caffeine withdrawal headaches, but it’s not the same as good ole DP. Giving up Facebook would have been easier. 😉 Offer it up.
If you can’t read between the lines, I’m addicted to DP. At least three a day, morning, midday, evening. Caffeine is part of the problem. Mountain Dew, or any soft drinks for that matter with caffeine or not, don’t satisfy the craving for DP.
A non-Catholic friend indirectly asked about the practice of giving something up for Lent. My short reply:
Craziness?? Giving something up, or sacrificing, during Lent is about re-ordering our disordered desires. It is a form of fasting, and fasting is one of the antidotes to our threefold concupiscence, “the lust of the flesh [pleasure] and the lust of the eyes [possessions] and the pride of life [power]” (1 John 2:13-17, cf Genesis 3:6). It’s only crazy if you are not seeking a change of heart, metanoia.
If there is was more space, I would add:
Jesus’ three temptations in the desert correspond to the threefold concupiscence. Jesus, as man, as the new Adam, succeeded where the old Adam, the first man, had failed.
You only sacrifice things that are good, that have value to you.
Detachment, or emptying yourself, creates a space within you. This allows something else to move in. Are you going to chose other things, or God?
In the Old Testament, you were suppose to unite yourself with your sacrifice to God. It is a symbol or metaphor for you. God doesn’t need a burnt offering or my Dr. Pepper. God wants me, my heart. He wants my will joined with His. He wants me to freely choose to do good, to want the good for others, like He does. My desires need to be in order. And at the risk of mixing metaphors, God wants me to learn to dance with Him. And I can’t do that if I have disordered worldly attachments. I can’t dance with a Dr. Pepper in my hand.
Either you are moving closer to God or moving away from God. Moses called this the choice of life or death (Deut. 30:15-20). If taken seriously, the practice of Lent illuminates this choice. The choice is yours.
As I rise from sleep, I thank You, O Holy Trinity, for through Your great goodness and patience You have not been angry with me, an idler and sinner, nor have You destroyed me with mine iniquities, but has shown Your usual love for mankind; and when I was prostrate in despair, You have raised me up to keep the morning watch and glorify Your power. And now enlighten my mind’s eye, and open my mouth that I may meditate on Your words, and understand Your commandments, and do Your will, and hymn You in heartfelt confession, and sing praises to Your all-holy name: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
O Come, let us worship God, our King.
O Come, let us worship and fall down before Christ, our King and God.
O Come, let us worship and fall down before Christ himself, our King and God.
An awesome song called “Into the Wild” powerfully sung by L.P. (Laura Pergolizzi). Links to listen to song and artist’s webpage.
Are we on the lonely side
Say oh now the past long away
Are we so lost in the dark of our hearts
That oh-oh-oh-oh there’s no light of day, no-oh-oh
No-oh-oh-oh
One, two, three, four
Somebody left the gate open
You know we got lost on the way
Come save us, a runaway train, gone insane
How do we, how do we not fade?
How do we, how do we, how do we not fade away?
How do we, how do we all fall
Into the wild
How are we livin’, livin’, livin’
Into the wild
How are we livin’, livin’, livin’
Whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh, hey-hey-hey, hey-hey-hey-hey
Oh please believe me I’m more scared than not
That oh-oh-oh-oh this isn’t the way
And please be there, I can barely hang on
But whoa-oh-oh I’ll wait ‘til I break, yeah-hey-hey-hey
Yeah-hey-hey-hey
Somebody left the gate open
You know we got lost on the way
Come save us, a runaway train, gone insane
How do we, how do we not fade?
How do we, how do we, how do we not fade away?
How do we, how do we all fall
Into the wild
How are we livin’, livin’, livin’
Into the wild
How are we livin’, livin’, livin’
Whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh, hey-hey-hey, hey-hey-hey-hey
Experience of life: its routines; the workaday world;
home leisure, reassuring in their way, buttress
our sense of life’s rational elements, its continuity
upholding our need for a beginning, a middle, and an end,
and awareness of place along the line, holding off conflicts
that bear no resolution: the creep of illness and indifference;
the shadow of death; the forces of chaos at the unwelcome
perimeter, where we mightily struggle to keep them.
And yet, and yet, the flicker of delight across the broad
brow and heaven is full of laughter of chaos: unexpected,
whimsical, even dangerous unto death. Such chaos, to be
viable as the spark of life, has been disarmed—or at least
held back, so we may absorb the humor, drink deeply of the
absurd, and emerge revived and refreshed: with fears, with
life led to edge of exhaustion, to the place of the void;
restrained, firmly restrained, I suspect by the love of God.