REST Day 1: Ash Wednesday

Journal Prompt: What led you to give up social media for Lent?

Part of me screamed a little as I deleted the Facebook and Instagram apps from my phone last night. 
Oh, gah, Laura Beth, I thought. You're so pathetic.

Maybe. And an addict.

For the past year I've realized how much I depend on social media outlets to make me feel important and connected. For a girl who went from being completely immersed in business and social connections as a magazine editor to being a full-time stay at home mom of two toddlers, well, maybe you could see why I would clutch these outlets so tightly. 

It came to a head when I realized my spiritual life was suffering, and I came across this essay by author Carlos Whittaker (Kill the Spider is first on my Lenten reading list). After some reflection I KNEW that social media was my bugaboo, the thing that gummed up my internal works the most, and something needed to change.

If this sounds familiar, keep reading...

Lent
For me, Lent is still a little new. I was raised a nondenominational Christian, but in high school I became more familiar with liturgical traditions and fell in love with them for the rhythms and spiritual grips they gave to my faith. No doubt that Lent might be my least favorite tradition, with its emphasis on self-denial, but this year I took that as a sign, that maybe what sounded so hard might be exactly what I needed.

Maybe you always observe Lent, or maybe this is your first time. Or maybe you're not observing Lent so much as looking for a support group to help with your rabid thumb scroll. It's all good here, we're going to talk about it ALL.

(If you'd like a little background on the liturgical roots of Lent, I'll send you here for some excellent perspective.) 

The roots of Rest: A Social Media Experiment
Traditionally, Lent IS about self-denial, mirroring Jesus' 40 day fast in the wilderness before beginning His earthly ministry (Matthew 4:1-11). Sounds kind of terrible, right? And you're reading the words of the worst fast-er of all time (I've never made it a full day without food of some kind),
but if there's one thing I've come to realize about my faith is that God never requires sacrifice without great benefit. What might seem a legalist bit of deprivation is actually a gift of grace.

With spiritual disciplines of self-denial I've found that their flipside is usually rest for our souls, hence where this blog series title came from.

I took it from the idea of Sabbath, the day a week God asks us to stop working. A terrible concepts in 21st century America, rest is actually what most of us would say we need, but most of us are too terrified to seek. The pressure is on in our society to work more, do more, and let's face it, PROMOTE ourselves more (hello, social media!), to be worth anything. 

Okay, we can say all day that we don't believe it, but our browser histories, MY browser histories, say differently.

If you've followed my blog at all over the past year, you know I just finished a cooking project on Shauna Niequist's Bread and Wine. I had to work with many different types of food and styles of cooking and I realized that two of the techniques I struggled with the most were simmering and resting. Slow, watchful work where I did very little made me antsy and itchy.

What?! Rest? Aren't I supposed to DO something? Shouldn't I stir or mix or poke or prod or...SOMETHING?

No. And believe you me, recipes often turned out funky when I wouldn't let them rest or simmer. They turned out too hard or heavy or even too loose or watery if I didn't just let them REST.

This sounded too much like my own life, and so, for Lent, I decided to embrace rest from social media.

Ash Wednesday
Traditionally Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is a day of repentance and remembrance; repentance from sin (what wrongs we've done) and remembering our position before God (from dust [we] were made, and to dust [we] shall return" (Genesis 3:19). 

This might sound a little heavy, a little unpositive thinking, but any financier will tell you have to take stock of all your assets and financial history before you can invest; any doctor will take your medical history before proceeding treatment; any therapist will provide initial consultation before planning a counseling path. 

For me, Ash Wednesday is a little like this, plus some. I'm taking stock of where I've been with social media, and the wrongs I've done with it, and remembering my place before God to do His work, um, and not the other way around.

Journal and share
Okay, I've spilled it-- here's where I am and what this blog project is about: REST and finding centeredness in our souls.

With the journal prompts, I honestly hope you'll get an old fashioned pen and journal to write and reflect just for you. If you're like me, social media is a pretty personal thing and it will take some hand-to-paper writing to help me detox. But I'd like to hear how other people are processing the pause (and here's the thing, other readers will, too), so I'd be honored if you share a bit about what brought you here in the comments. Here's to encouraging each other in the coming days!

Journal Prompt: What led you to give up social media for Lent?