Giving Up and Taking Up: Encountering New Perspectives on Lent

Though I do not identify with any particular religion, I am intrigued by the way religious traditions and cycles frame one’s intentions and expectations throughout the year. The themes, philosophy, and narratives that weave with the movement of the year help people maintain connection with their self, community, purpose, and sense of divinity. Recently, a Christian friend and I were discussing the ways that they interpret the season of Lent and Easter in their lives.

Previously, I’d say I associated Lent with sacrifice and submission to God, and perceived it as a very heavy time. I associate it with hyper-consciousness of sin, as one tries to “purify” themselves through giving up practices that are not good. Or, perhaps, one may give up things that they enjoy as a sacrifice to god. I wasn’t all that sure, but had passively bypassed looking for any further understanding or nuance because I assumed it wasn’t relevant to me. This is a common pitfall when looking at faith practices outside of our own traditions. Digging a little deeper, even with a single conversation, can provide rich insight. 

With most traditions and practices, different people attach to different aspects (philosophically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and physically). As such, Christian people have a wide variety of relationships with the season of Lent, with different motivations and intentions surrounding their practices. While no single person’s understanding will enlighten you to the “true” meaning of Lent/Easter, their motivations and intentions can reveal a lot about their understanding of divinity and spiritual practice.

 After my conversation, I was shocked to see how similar my friend and I’s spiritual philosophy was, despite identifying with faith in different ways. I have no holidays or longer “seasonal” practices that I associate with my personal spirituality. I often catch myself neglecting my spiritual practices because it isn’t “convenient” or “relevant”, despite being the most relevant thing to my existence. My friend told me that she has struggled with Christianity a lot, but realized that her relationship with “God’s love” and Christian practices like church/church community, holidays/church seasons, and prayer have been arenas where she has consistently found love, connection, and direction. She chooses to set her own intentions for the season of Lent, which I will share (paraphrasing her words, which she will have approved before this is published). These are personal intentions, and may not be “typical” amongst Christians. However, she identifies as Christian, and associates these practices with her religion.

For her, Lent is a period of reflection as well as action. She indeed chooses to “give up” one thing that she thinks is distancing her from loving herself or others to the best of her ability. However, she also chooses to “take up” something each day which brings her closer to loving herself or others (learning a new recipe, writing a letter to a friend, volunteering). I love this idea, as I think I often become lost in the anxiety of both all the things I am responsible for doing, and all the things about myself I feel responsible for fixing or improving. I can lose sight of prioritizing the things I do (or could do) simply out of love. My friend expressed the same sentiment, saying she often gets down on herself for not being the “best version of herself” or “what God would want her to be'', and this practice helps remind her that the God she believes in would much rather her be a person who spends her energy loving others to the best of her ability rather than worried about all the ways in which she’s flawed. However, she does give up one thing each Lent, which often ends up being a thing she never returns to her life. Focusing on one spiritually “unhealthy” practice at a time helps her be more patient with herself. Habits are naturally difficult to move away from, and she thinks this difficulty compounds when you try to take them all on at once to “purify” yourself. 

Good Friday is the “holiday” in the Christian faith representing the crucifixion/execution of Jesus Christ. My friend said that, as a child, she never understood why Jesus was killed and hated if he was such “pure” goodness and love. As she’s gotten older, this story has taken on different meanings for her as she has explored it theologically and personally. She had a fascinating spiritual interpretation she often returns to. She said that no matter how much striving one does to be godly and loving there is always that nagging feeling that you will never be good enough or feel like you are fulfilling your duty to God, or your loved ones, or yourself. As she sees it, the willful judgment of human beings killed Jesus, and it will kill godliness inside you. This struck me as a Buddhist-like sentiment, which she agreed with. She sees many “sins” as a response to the suffering in life. Her interpretation of “Jesus died for our sins” is that Jesus died so that we can respond to suffering with love rather than with fear. Easter, the resurrection, then is a reminder that love prevails over suffering and death, and that the love of God is eternally being reborn and resurrected inside of and all around us. 

This conversation allowed me so much more insight into my friend’s spiritual and religious intentions in life and Lent. I was honored that she shared all of this with me, and has allowed me to share it here on this platform. My hope is that Christians and non-Christians alike could learn, as I have, a new perspective. I encourage you to inquire more into the wide variety of perspectives inherent to each faith practice and tradition.