Now that's a tough Lent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was a decade ago during Lent that author Lauren Winner was visited by an angel, unawares. "Actually, it was my priest," said Winner, who teaches\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/03\/now-thats-a-tough-lent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Now that's a tough Lent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was a decade ago during Lent that author Lauren Winner was visited by an angel, unawares. 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{"id":1826,"date":"2010-03-15T05:40:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T09:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2010-03-15T05:40:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T09:40:37","slug":"now-thats-a-tough-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/03\/now-thats-a-tough-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Now that’s a tough Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It was a decade ago during Lent that author Lauren Winner was visited by an angel, unawares.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, it was my priest,\u201d said Winner, who teaches Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School<\/a>. \u201cI have learned that people in my life often tell me what I need to do during Lent. \u2026 It\u2019s kind of like hearing from angels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the voice wasn\u2019t miraculous, Winner thought it would take a miracle to follow her spiritual guide\u2019s advice. The challenge was deceptively simple: Could she give up reading during Lent?<\/p>\n

At the time, Winner was working as book review editor for Beliefnet.com and studying for her doctorate at Columbia University. She was a writer, editor and student and, naturally, was surrounded by books day after day.<\/p>\n

How in the name of God was she supposed to stop reading?<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, she decided to try.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not your normal 40 days of work,\u201d said Winner, author of \u201cGirl Meets God: A Memoir\u201d and other works of contemporary spirituality<\/a>. \u201cWhat I was doing was attacking my own work obsessions. This forced me to examine the place of work in my life. It made me examine other parts of my life, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fasting traditions during Lent \u2014 the 40-day penitential season before Easter \u2014 have evolved through the ages, especially in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and liturgical Protestant churches that emphasize the church calendar. Winner is active in the Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n

For centuries, Catholics ate only one real meal a day, with no meat or fish. Today, Catholics are supposed to observe a strict fast and abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday at the start of Lent and Good Friday at the end. In many parishes, the faithful are still urged to avoid meat on Fridays during Lent. Orthodox Christians strive to fast from meat and dairy products during all of Lent and Holy Week.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, millions of Americans in a variety of churches follow an informal tradition in which they choose to fast from \u201cone thing\u201d \u2014 such as chocolate or soft drinks \u2014 during Lent. This practice may be linked to a passage in the sixth century monastic Rule of St. Benedict, which states:<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring these days, therefore, let us add something to the usual amount of our service, special prayers, abstinence from food and drink, that each one offer to God \u2026 something above his prescribed measure. Namely, let him withdraw from his body somewhat of food, drink, sleep, speech, merriment, and with the gladness of spiritual desire await holy Easter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winner noted that this practice of \u201cgiving up one thing\u201d was supposed to build on the traditional Lenten disciplines linked to food, prayer and almsgiving \u2014 not replace them. The goal was to shine a spotlight into some unexamined corner of one\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take her long, for example, for Winner to realize that she couldn\u2019t stop reading \u2014 period. She needed, for example, to reread one book to prepare for an exam. She had to do some reading in order to do her day job, but she asked if she could be relieved from some assignments that she would have accepted, if not for this unique Lenten discipline.<\/p>\n

The surprise, said Winner, was how this fast touched her life after the working day. That\u2019s when she could almost hear her favorite volumes of history and fiction calling her name (especially the detective novels).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this showed me was that I was using reading as an escape. I was reading books as a way to get away from some things,\u201d she said, and then laughed. \u201cFiction is probably a better way to cope with some issues in your life than heroin. But if books are what you\u2019re using, then you need to find that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years since, Winner has repeated this bookish fast several times, while searching for other disciplines that would have a similar impact. This year she is trying to fast from \u201csaying \u2018yes\u2019 all the time,\u201d which is harder than it sounds. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, Lent isn\u2019t a therapeutic self-improvement project,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re supposed to take a hard look at our sins and then repent. But how do we get to repentance if we have never truly paused to examine our lives? \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us are morally and spiritually sleepwalking. We need to wake up and see where we are and what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"