I AM THE GREATEST PENITENT OF ALL TIME
I really want to watch the new episode of NHL Revealed but it's not available to stream on the CBC website. Boo.
Soooo that I guess leads into Lenten disciplines? Ha. I've been struggling to come up with something specific and concrete to undertake.
My first big thought was to read St. Augustine's Confessions which I started and never finished. My other thought is St. Francis de Sales's Introduction to the Devout Life which I have read but never in order so I can't be sure I've actually read the whole thing. A third thought, the Imitation of Christ which I have read in its entirety and in order, but before I became Catholic, so we're talking almost ten years ago, my goodness. A fourth thought, the Interior Castle, ditto ditto.
Too many thoughts? Probably.
As a family, we're giving up meat on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This is going to be tough for me because lately I've just been really burned out on cooking. Just struggling with all aspects of it--meal planning, shopping, preparing. Usually this is one of the few homemaking tasks I enjoy so that's been a real bummer. I've even stopped reading cookbooks and food blogs, that's how not into cooking I am right now. Not being myself.
Rather than giving up a specific thing (other than the meat thing) I'm trying to focus on stopping eating when I am satisfied rather than full, if that distinction makes sense. Taking small portions and getting seconds only if ACTUALLY still hungry.
It's part of a larger focus I am trying to make on not doing things mindlessly and being present. Reducing screen time is going to be a part of this also but I am trying to draw up a reasonable guideline for myself and finding it hard. Last Lent (IIRC) the most difficult part of giving up screen time for myself was not getting instant gratification on minor curiosities. Example: I'm waiting for a bus by a store with an sign in its window advertising a sale on "propolis tinctures". What's propolis? I think. Smartphone out, Google, and within 30 seconds, I'm reading about it on Wikipedia. Before I attempted a screen fast, I had no IDEA how much I was doing that kind of thing, and how maddening it would be not to scratch that curiosity itch when it arose. Compared to that, giving up on checking Facebook, reading blogs etc was nothing.
But. I know that I do need to rein in the media use. Because within the last week I've heard the phrase I dreaded hearing from my two year old: "Mommy, put away your phone please?"
Yes, I'd like to order the motivating and proportionate guilt, but could you hold the crippling embarrassment and shame please? Oh, you can't? Well. I guess I'll try to scrape it off then.
I think part of the answer is going to lie in getting myself real, soul-satisfying breaks during the day, so that I stop trying to take unsatisfying fake ones via a quick absorption in my phone (or whatever). Some salvation may be at hand because Pippa has recently flipped some kind of development switch and suddenly can FOCUS, at least some of the time. She has a puzzle book with six six-piece puzzles in it. She will sit with this book, take the pieces out of the first puzzle and put it back together, turn the page, do the next puzzle, and so on, until she's finished the entire book.
Today at the playroom she was trying to sort a bunch of rubber dinosaurs by color onto some colored plates, and she kept crying because younger kids would come by and try to snatch things away. Weird experience. For the first time, I was the mom of the older kid whose careful, focused play was being disturbed by an anarchic and impulsive younger kid, instead of the other way around.
Anyway. If I can turn some of this quiet play into an actual break for myself, then I'll be more able to be present the rest of the time.
She's definitely a new generation kid though. Have tried to explain many times that I need a break. When I said I needed to "recharge, like the iPad", then she seemed to get it. Should I be amused or ashamed? I'm gonna go with amused, I have enough guilt to grapple with.
Soooo that I guess leads into Lenten disciplines? Ha. I've been struggling to come up with something specific and concrete to undertake.
My first big thought was to read St. Augustine's Confessions which I started and never finished. My other thought is St. Francis de Sales's Introduction to the Devout Life which I have read but never in order so I can't be sure I've actually read the whole thing. A third thought, the Imitation of Christ which I have read in its entirety and in order, but before I became Catholic, so we're talking almost ten years ago, my goodness. A fourth thought, the Interior Castle, ditto ditto.
Too many thoughts? Probably.
As a family, we're giving up meat on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This is going to be tough for me because lately I've just been really burned out on cooking. Just struggling with all aspects of it--meal planning, shopping, preparing. Usually this is one of the few homemaking tasks I enjoy so that's been a real bummer. I've even stopped reading cookbooks and food blogs, that's how not into cooking I am right now. Not being myself.
Rather than giving up a specific thing (other than the meat thing) I'm trying to focus on stopping eating when I am satisfied rather than full, if that distinction makes sense. Taking small portions and getting seconds only if ACTUALLY still hungry.
It's part of a larger focus I am trying to make on not doing things mindlessly and being present. Reducing screen time is going to be a part of this also but I am trying to draw up a reasonable guideline for myself and finding it hard. Last Lent (IIRC) the most difficult part of giving up screen time for myself was not getting instant gratification on minor curiosities. Example: I'm waiting for a bus by a store with an sign in its window advertising a sale on "propolis tinctures". What's propolis? I think. Smartphone out, Google, and within 30 seconds, I'm reading about it on Wikipedia. Before I attempted a screen fast, I had no IDEA how much I was doing that kind of thing, and how maddening it would be not to scratch that curiosity itch when it arose. Compared to that, giving up on checking Facebook, reading blogs etc was nothing.
But. I know that I do need to rein in the media use. Because within the last week I've heard the phrase I dreaded hearing from my two year old: "Mommy, put away your phone please?"
Yes, I'd like to order the motivating and proportionate guilt, but could you hold the crippling embarrassment and shame please? Oh, you can't? Well. I guess I'll try to scrape it off then.
I think part of the answer is going to lie in getting myself real, soul-satisfying breaks during the day, so that I stop trying to take unsatisfying fake ones via a quick absorption in my phone (or whatever). Some salvation may be at hand because Pippa has recently flipped some kind of development switch and suddenly can FOCUS, at least some of the time. She has a puzzle book with six six-piece puzzles in it. She will sit with this book, take the pieces out of the first puzzle and put it back together, turn the page, do the next puzzle, and so on, until she's finished the entire book.
Today at the playroom she was trying to sort a bunch of rubber dinosaurs by color onto some colored plates, and she kept crying because younger kids would come by and try to snatch things away. Weird experience. For the first time, I was the mom of the older kid whose careful, focused play was being disturbed by an anarchic and impulsive younger kid, instead of the other way around.
Anyway. If I can turn some of this quiet play into an actual break for myself, then I'll be more able to be present the rest of the time.
She's definitely a new generation kid though. Have tried to explain many times that I need a break. When I said I needed to "recharge, like the iPad", then she seemed to get it. Should I be amused or ashamed? I'm gonna go with amused, I have enough guilt to grapple with.