The joy of giving up
Apart from self-imposed sacrifice during Lent, "giving up" gets a bad press. There is merit to letting go of what you don't fancy doing.
As we enter the final few days of the Christian period of Lent I've been thinking about fasting which is a form of giving something up. It reminded me of a piece I wrote a few years ago which follows below.
My mother, a devout Christian so intent on getting me to attend church regularly that she turned a blind eye when I accompanied her to mass wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt, would, I am sure, have routinely given something up in the forty days preceding Easter but I, as a younger man, can’t remember making any such sacrifice.
As I’ve grown older though, I’ve quite enjoyed the self-imposed discipline that supposedly helps us toward spiritual maturity.
Fasting during Lent is supposed to remind us of the importance of sacrifice, humility and a loosening of our dependence on comfort and material wealth but, if I'm honest, I’ve only given up biscuits, cake, chocolate and crisps because my daughter was limiting her social media use and I wanted to stand in solidarity by depriving myself of an impressive array of treats.
Doing without a chocolate digestive for forty days hardly seems like much of a sacrifice, but I haven't even managed that.
It was my son’s birthday yesterday and I made him an enormous chocolate cake. I chose to break my fast for one day and had a slice figuring that Jesus wouldn’t mind because he was cool about my wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt in his house all those years ago.
The other thing I remember about Lent and Easter Christian tradition from my childhood is the giving of sugared almonds on Easter Sunday.
Father Paul (RIP) would stand with a basket full of the pastel-coloured nuggets offering them to departing parishioners while wishing everyone a happy Easter.
The symbolism was lost on me as a child and, more importantly, much less desirable than a chocolate egg.
The tradition comes from the spring blossoming of the almond tree and the signifying of new life or rebirth, while the hard shell of the nut represents endurance, perseverance and determination, all of which are required to eat a sugared almond without breaking a tooth.
While the “giving something up” related to Lent is seen as a worthy and noble pursuit, if a little foolhardy from the perspective of someone who really likes crisps, the other kind of “giving something up,” is mostly used as a pejorative.
To “give up” is usually considered weak and spineless and to be avoided at all costs, but there are times when it is the right thing to do.
In the same way that giving up Twiglets in Lent frees up time to reflect on existence and think long and hard about how lovely Twiglets are, giving up things that no longer serve us or that we’d prefer not to do can free time to be used for more useful and productive pursuits.
It’s Easter Sunday next week and some of you will be looking forward to celebrating the end of Lent with a feast of chocolate especially if you have been depriving yourself of something for the past forty days.
There is much to be said about the self-imposed restriction of giving something up, but sometimes, just giving up because you can’t be bothered can have surprisingly positive consequences.
My friend Martin has been here recently painting the front door, and porch, and re-staining the bi-fold doors that lead out into the garden.
It’s useful having a friend who is a talented tradesman, and even more useful when he is also a perfectionist because he compensates nicely for my complete inability to concentrate on anything for long enough to do it properly.
A few years ago, noticing that they were beginning to look untidy, I decided to stain the back doors and re-paint the garden furniture.
By the time I had assembled all the materials for the job, my enthusiasm had already begun to wane.
In my memory, I did thorough preparation but by the following summer the paint was already peeling from the garden chairs and the rear doors looked as if I had modelled the colour scheme on a loaf of tiger bread purchased from the local supermarket.
A few months ago I bought a new sander and started to think about finding the time to redo the work, but I stopped myself and wondered why I was so intent on tackling something that I neither much wanted to do nor had much instinct for completing to even my own shamefully low standards.
Better surely to free up time for myself that can be spent doing the things I enjoy, do well or, best of all, enjoy and do well.
So Martin came to do the jobs I had no appetite for.
Everyone loves the newly painted doors, so I feel vindicated in my decision not to get involved.
Since then, it seems as if the universe is reminding me of all the other things I gave up because I just couldn’t hack them.
In a conversation about the alarming speed at which I am ageing, I am reminding my daughter that I can enjoy free swimming at the local leisure centre.
“But you can’t swim,” she says.
“No, but I can splash around in the water frightening the lifeguards which is cathartic in its way.”
I had swimming lessons as an adult when my children were young but found myself unable to tread water and concluded, even though I didn't have this conversation with my instructor, that it was a prerequisite should I ever fall overboard and be waiting for rescue.
If I was to go to all the trouble of learning to swim only to perish waiting a few minutes in the water for a lifeboat the whole project would be rendered pointless and, frankly, embarrassing.
Then, this morning, while walking the dogs with my sister, one of hers ran off to the lake scavenging for food left behind by delinquent fishermen.
As we were chasing the dogs to try and retrieve half a loaf of sliced bread from their mouths, I started thinking about how I pursued fishing as a hobby for a few years but gave up having never caught a single fish and having seen one of my rods pulled into the river by the propeller of a passing boat in what I considered to be the final straw.
I haven’t missed fishing and the days I got back by giving it up have doubtless been spent more productively and enjoyably, although I retain a fondness for sitting on riverbanks eating sandwiches.
I decide to use the time Martin has saved me to sow some vegetable seeds in the raised beds.
“I can’t imagine ever giving this up,” I think, as the last row of carrots is in the ground.
Later, through the newly stained and smart-looking back doors, I can see the dog digging in the raised beds right where I planted the carrots and I think about having another go at fishing.
This week on “Sideways” we’re talking about “False Memory”, where we think we remember things that didn’t happen or fill unexplained gaps in our recall.
A goat is arrested on suspicion of stealing a Mazda 323, Martin gets pizza on his jeans, and I suffer a malware attack.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.
Until next time.
Haha, loved the Black Sabbath t-shirt story! Giving up chocolate cake for Jesus - classic. Letting Martin handle the painting is a great reminder to delegate (and enjoy that cake!). Good luck with the seeds (dog permitting)!