Wot, no fruit and nut?

I have given up chocolate for Lent. Some people at church are surprised, saying either that they don’t do things like that (i.e. give things up in Lent) or that they couldn’t do without their chocolate fix!

So let me explain why I’m doing it. It is a kind of fast, what some call a partial fast. Like when Daniel and his friends in the Bible lived on only vegetables and water for ten days (Daniel chapter 1). Jesus gave us instructions for fasting. He began by saying “When you fast” (not if; Matthew 6:16).

I think this kind of fasting helps us to keep control over our bodies, rather than letting them get the upper hand. St Paul wrote about “beating” his body to make it his slave (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). From the context I don’t think he meant that literally, but he was saying that for the Christian, it takes discipline to live out the Christian life.

In our consumer culture, where whatever we want we must have, and now, it can be helpful to say, “I may want that chocolate bar, but I don’t need it, and I can do without it, so I will do without it!”

And by the way, if you do give up chocolate for Lent, it tastes so much sweeter on Easter Day!

Carbon fast again

Some of you may have been missing my carbon fast missives. Well, nothing very exciting to report. Many of the things suggested we do already. For instance day 22 says re-use an old envelope or print double sided. As to the former, we have a stock of 10 used padded envelopes and about 50 used envelopes (I stopped counting after 20). As to the latter, I regularly use the 'other' side of A4 sheets as scrap paper and have quite a hoard of that.

Day 24 was "counsel your local council" about recycling facilities. Good old Essex County Council obliged with a questionnaire to fill in about their recycling in their free magazine! The rest of the magazine got recycled!

Oh yes! Day 25 was to de-ice the fridge ... Must do that!