You'll never guess what time it is!!
Time for me to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus with Supernatural fanfic!
(Is that sacrilegious? I may be sacrilegious again later, as well. I'm hoping God won't mind.)
Anyway! Lent is over, and with it my fanfiction fast! So here is what I need you, my lovely Web-based friends, to do: Send me links to stories you've finished (or that others have finished and you now recommend) since Lent began. (For the less liturgically inclined out there who, nevertheless, still want to play along (which I heartily encourage), that's since February 25th.) I am wasting away for want of fanfiction, so hurry, please, before I perish!
Also, let me take a moment to say that I'm sorry if during my time away (I find that I need the computer much less when I'm not reading fanfiction -- I think I broke a record for length of time I went without checking my work e-mail) I missed out on commenting on a trial or triumph of yours. I'm glad (if not especially surprised) that you all seem to have gotten on tolerably well in my absence.
And for those who are interested, here is how my Lenten experiment turned out.
Very well, actually. I think I've already said on here that I used the time in the morning that I normally spend reading fanfic while doing my hair to read devotional-type books. I started out by rereading Girl Meets God, which was as good as and better than I remembered it. When I finished that, I started Mere Christianity, but didn't get too far because the first part (and at the time I didn't realize it wasn't the whole book) is devoted more to arguing for the existence of God, than telling you want to do once you've decided he exists. So I ordered The Quotidian Mysteries (about finding God in the daily living of life), and while I waited for it to come in, pulled out an old book of devotional classics. It was really good for me, and not as hard as I thought, and I'm planning to keep that part of things up.
Toward the end of Lent, I added a couple of other bits as well. I've been rereading the Harry Potter books since the New Year, and I finished them on the Tuesday before Easter. Harry Potter is one of those books that finishing leaves me at loose ends. I never know what to do with myself, how I'm going to follow it up with another book and not be disappointed. This time, that turned out to be convenient. As I said, I read Girl Meets God earlier, and, for those who haven't read it, in one part of it, Lauren Winner talks about giving up books for Lent. That's kind of what inspired my fanfiction fast, but I knew I couldn't give up books altogether. But since I was flailing for another book anyway, I decided I'd try it for just the last few days of Easter -- Wednesday through Sunday of Holy Week.
It was so hard! Giving up books for those few days was way WAY harder than giving up fanfiction for the entire 40! Especially when I went to my parents' house for the weekend -- they sell books on eBay, and their house is stuffed with books, piled up at every turn. My entire brain was itching to pick one up. Even random titles that I'm not normally at all interested in.
I really think I didn't do a very good job of this part. I did (with one exception that I don't feel very bad about) manage to avoid books, but I think I spent the time that freed up less productively. And though it wasn't specifically covered in the terms, I feel like I cheated by reading Refur's recaps.
Somewhat more successfully, I also added one day of fasting on Good Friday. I've never fasted before and I've always been a little curious. And I figured Friday would be a fairly easy day to try it out on, because I could fill up lunch time by going to my church's Good Friday service at noon, and then during dinner time, I'd be on the road, driving to my parents' house.
This was also harder than I expected. The work day passed without too much difficulty. But on the road, I didn't have much to distract me from thoughts of how good this or that would taste. And what I hadn't counted on at home was the stuffing of plastic Easter Eggs with candy for the kids. But I managed it. And though I don't think being hungry made me feel much holier, I do think it taught me something about self-control (which is a fruit of the spirit, and therefore not a bad thing to learn, right?), and that -- even if it was only in a small way -- God can help me do hard things.
So all in all, I think Lent was great! I'm Baptist, so normally we don't do much for Lent, but this year (and maybe all years -- I've only started going to the church this year) my pastor had been focusing more on the liturgical calendar, and toward the beginning of Lent he described it as a time to reorient yourself toward God, and I really do think I made some progress in that direction over the past 40 days. Meanwhile, I've gotten incrementally more involved with my Sunday school class, and I've signed up to be a Big Sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters, so some progress on the self-absorption, as well.
Oh, and here is the other sacrilegious thing. I mentioned that I had been reading Harry Potter, right? So I finished the last one during Holy Week (stop reading here if you have not read Harry Potter and think you someday might!!!). And later in the week, reading the Easter story in the Bible and during the Maundy Thursday service, I could not stop comparing the end of Harry Potter to the Easter story. Specifically, the bit where Harry knows what he has to do and is walking into the forest, knowing that he's going to have to die to save everyone else to Jesus' time praying in the garden. I could try to wax eloquent on it, but I think it would just come out cheesy. Anyway. Completely unexpectedly, I think Harry Potter improved my appreciation for the Easter story. How's that for an Easter miracle?