Doncaster East Uniting Church Blog

Day One.

I’ve decided to do something for Lent. Something serious, something difficult. Traditionally, Lent is used as a time of sacrifice, of self-denial and reflection in the lead up to Easter. There are some pretty reasonable agricultural reasons why people living on the land in the Northern Hemisphere fast from meat and animal product for the 46 days between days of Ash Wednesday (date this year) and Palm Sunday (date this year) as well as religious reasons, but nowadays its mostly (if its observed at all) for reflective and contemplative reasons.

So that’s me. I want to do something that’s going to force a change in my behaviour. Something that interrupts my regular life. A challenge that requires me to overcome each day and forces space for me to reflect. I have also been really taken by the idea in a couple of books we have around our place, Yes Man (Yes I know it’s a movie now, but a book first!) and The Year of Living Biblically. In both books, the authors undertake a commitment to a lifestyle very different form their current ones and then share their reflections on the journey. That’s the kind of experience I wanted from Lent.

With that as my main requirement I chose my sacrifice and am kind of backfilling it with meaning as I go… but that’s ok.

So for Lent I’m giving up shoes.

Kinda a biggie I know, so should fit the bill of being a challenge! After discussing it with some friends, I had to give myself some time-out passes in order to allow me to break the fast at certain times. In particular I was hesitant because I have weddings coming up where I am the celebrant, plus I play cricket and only have one game left before finals. But I figure it is more important to try something imperfectly rather than not at all.

So today was my first full day. Its not hard yet, though I did notice that if lack of shoes define the have-not’s, then our world is certainly designed for the have’s! Its not a friendly world for the shoeless!

I’ll keep you posted.
Lucas T.

Not even thongs for 40 days!