My friend and former roommate Swaim had a great blog post about the origin of the word carnival. It means, "farewell meat/flesh". Mardi Gras is also known as Fat Tuesday, and the reason it is such a carnival is because it precedes the season of Lent in the church calendar.
Most of us are familiar with Lent because it is the annual giving up of chocolate, soda, or various other legally addictive products. We say farewell to those things on Mardi Gras - the last day to indulge before abstaining for 40+ days until Easter.
So what are you giving up?
This year I am really trying to figure out how to say farewell to the flesh during Lent. What is it in my life that I feel like I cannot live without? What is something that I have allowed to take control over me, instead of me over it? That's what it means to deprive the flesh. I have come up with a few things I am going to say farewell to over Lent, but one in particular will be harder than the others. twitter.
Many of you may not understand twitter and always wonder why really random comments keep showing up on the right side of my blog. But twitter is a way to connect with people, as well as a way to chronicle what's going on in your life. It's a micro-blog. Micro because you're limited to 140 characters per entry. But you can share pictures, music, links, news...whatever! For instance, here is a list of some of the updates I receive on twitter:- AsburySeminary
- BravesMLB
- dukebasketball
- compassion
- emergentvillage
- Sojourners
- tapdraw
- statedog
- lorimerricks
- Twiturgy
Reason #1: It is an addiction. I check twitter more times per day than I check email and facebook combined. Whenever I pull my iPhone out of my pocket, it's the first thing I click. I am not in control of twitter anymore, it controls me.
Reason #2: I want more time. This semester I have a full-time job, a wife, 2 kids, and 3 seminary classes. I need all the time I can get. And I also need personal time. Time to be a husband. Time to be a dad. Time to think. Time to write. Time to read. Time to be with God. Time to just be.
Reason #3: I need order in my life. My life feels a little out of control right now. I have to work extra hard to keep everything going, and it's not easy. Twitter is like the chaos of my life...all the updates just keep coming and there's nothing you can do to stop them. If you go too long without reading it, you find yourself way behind and spending way too much time trying to catch up. If I can give up twitter, one form of chaos, then I feel I can find order throughout.
Reason #4: Jesus demands it. He demands that we give up what we think we can't live without. Just look at Luke 9:23-27 and also Luke 9:57-62. In each case, Jesus calls for a radical denial of what we think is important so that we can follow him. For me right now, it's twitter.
And so, I say farewell twitter. See you April 13. Happy Mardi Gras!
2 comments:
Seriously. I got a lot of respect for you for this. Laid in the bed thinking about it last night.
Twitter is the only thing that resembles an addiction for me as well at this stage in my life. I think I'll hold onto it this year, however, because I feel like it is finally becoming the community-building tool that I hoped it would and I want to help cultivate that. (Only time will tell if this is an excuse or a justification).
I do want to be more mindful of what it's doing to the community of my house. I've restricted the SMS settings so that I don't get any when I get home. And I'm only going to check it in the first 10 minutes of the hour if I think about it and if nothings going on.
Also, I'm going to be spreading some pretty nasty rumors about you on Twitter. Too bad you wont know until April 13th.
Again, way to go.
Twitter is something that I have been afraid to join, for this very reason! :) You've reaffirmed my desire to not join...maybe one day, but just not now.
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