Lent tends to catch me surprise- this year more than usual. Growing up, we didn't really "do" anything for lent- the 40 days before Easter- but in recent years I've really enjoyed trying out different things to step into faith and into seeing God in our world.
This year, I'll try a partial media fast again. In a sudden twist, I'm not going to be completely legalistic: the hope is that it will include all media that make me less connected with my day or those around me. Unless circumstances dictate otherwise, this will include Facebook, google reader and all non-friend blogs (I can check friends blogs directly), NY Times and Boston.com.
I did this once before, and it went well until it stopped going well. I actually did it during the Haiti earthquake, and eventually I really wanted to know what was going on, although not really knowing what was going on yielded really good things-- for example, I spoke to (rather than checked the facebook page of) an old college friend, who is from Haiti, for the first time since we both graduated. Given the earthquake and subsequent Tsunami in Japan, I'm not sure how one stays personally connected while being disconnected from large media sources. But I'd like to try.
Any thoughts on media, escapism, and staying connected? Or, if you're into lent, want to share anything about what you do and why?
1 comment:
I'm doing a partial media fast too--well, a partial news fast. I was starting it due to the terrible state of news these days, and since it does happen to be Lent I thought I'd tack it onto my other observances. Since we don't get the paper and I don't listen to the radio, the main effect is to stop me from looking at Google News; I will still read The Economist, I confess. Hopefully I'll manage to stay away from other useless sources of internet text as well, though I won't be giving up my carefully cultivated RSS stream. What would I read if it weren't for my blogs?!
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