12 Months of Lent

Who? What? Why? How?

1. Who are you?? – My name is Jenn. I am a 34 year old single mother of 2 wonderful boys. I am surrounded by an amazing and supportive family and some of the best friends in the world. I work as a Risk Manager in a high stress, challenging job that I absolutely love. I will be going on my second mission trip to Romania in August/September to work with orphans. I am a Stephen Minister with my church and participate in a lay ministry education program called Education for Ministry. In short, I live a wonderful, busy, fulfilling life filled with love from my friends and family and abundant in God’s blessings. I also really like beer and shoes.

2. Why are you doing this? Every year my family gives up something for Lent. This year, after being completely inspired by Give It Up: My Year of Learning to Live Better With Less, I decided to follow in the author’s example and make monthly sacrifices, beginning with the start of Lent for a full year. A new sacrifice each month. The more I explore my spirituality, the more I feel called to push my boundaries and see what new limits God wants me to break through. The first commandment is Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me. I think in this day and age, we put many, many things before God. My study about the life of St. Francis and his life of poverty and self sacrifice was also a huge inspiration towards this endeavor. I also love a challenge but know deep in my heart that my fear of heights and inability to eat llama testicles without projectile vomiting will prevent me from living out my Fear Factor dream.

3. What’s the point? None, really. Just for me to see if I can do it and to see what I learn about gratuitous luxuries. In the end, it’s not going to change the world if I go without salt for a month or if I don’t watch TV but it may expand my life experiences and teach me something about myself. It’s about choosing to give up things that are totally unnecessary in my life. Each of the things I am giving up are things that I do not need to live a full life. They are luxuries that are viewd incorrectly as needs, instead of wants, especially in America. TV/DVD’s, iPods, expensive meals, excessive consumption of food and alcohol and just food in general are things that we take for granted. Shallow materialism is rampant in America. I make no assertions that I am any better than anyone else in terms of materialism. I own way too many pairs of shoes and personal grooming products to pretend otherwise. I also love to write and figure this will give me a nice, safe, healthy outlet for my creative endeavors now that they are passing all those pesky cyber stalking laws.

4. Why should I make a donation because you’re not going out to dinner or having cocktails for a month? As part of my trip to Romania, I have to raise money to finance the trip. I just thought it might be nice to allow people to support both my trip to Romania and my abstinence from personal luxuries at the same time. I am personally challenging people to think about what I am doing and maybe consider joining me in some small way. When I give up eating out, maybe someone will also refrain from eating out for a week and then donate the money to help me fund my trip. Maybe instead of getting that expensive bottle of wine with dinner, you’ll decide to donate the money to my mission trip. Even if you don’t give anything up, maybe you’ll want to make a “You Go, Girl!” donation during a month that you think is particularly difficult for me. I’ve made it very easy to participate in my challenge by providing a link to my PayPal account where anyone can make a donation via debit or credit card. If I don’t earn a penny, I’m still making my sacrifices and I’m still going to Romania. All money earned after I go on my mission will be donated directly to Children to Love, the mission group I work with. I solemnly swear that none of the money collected will go towards the purchase of shoes or of personal grooming products.

5. What are you giving up? There will be 12 sacrifices, or as I call them, The Dirty Dozen. I will be giving up (in order, beginning in March) salt, alcohol, eating out, TV/DVD’s, swearing, condiments, caffeine, personal email/text messaging, junk food, fasting/all food every Friday, meat and music. Some I expect to be harder than others, such as TV, salt and swearing but each of them will present a real challenge as I did not take any easy outs in selecting things to give up. I consulted friends and family to narrow down a list of things that are my personal luxuries and weaknesses that would be personally painful to abandon for a month. Despite their urging, I was unable to find a way to give up “shoes”. I cannot go barefoot for 30 days. I think we have to be realistic about what I can live without.

6. Do you like Pina Coladas? Yes, I do. I also like getting caught in the rain.

posted by Monet @ 2:12 PM