Lenten up already!

A Christian quest to cut carbon

Posted by Ashley Braun at 11:15 PM on 07 Feb 2008

Read more about: religion and spirituality | food | vegetarianism and veganism | green living

With the start of Lent, Christians the world-over are praying, fasting, and giving alms in preparation for Easter. This often means also making some kind of sacrifice in the name of solidarity with the poor and the Church ... you know, getting guilted into giving up your most savory sins: gorging yourself on Moose Tracks ice cream or ogling Al Gore. Going without. For forty days. In a row.

It's often perceived as a chore akin to New Year's Resolutions -- and adhered to about as strictly.

Part of the problem lies in the negative and obligatory framing of Lenten sacrifice. Don't drink so much! Why aren't you praying more? Can't spare another five bucks for the Church?

There are plenty of similarities with the framing of the climate problem. Don't drive so much! Why aren't you recycling more? Can't you spare another five thousand bucks for solar panels?

This Lent I propose a reconciliation for the climate-conscious Christian. Heck, I propose a reconciliation for anyone harboring hordes of green guilt.

I want to base this on the forty days model from Christianity, along with its goals of "disciplining the body to rely less on the things of this world" and creating a clear-headed vision of priorities. The secular focus has an obvious climate application of reducing consumption and recreating an identity with the global ecological community.

The challenge: choose one or two climate-hatin' habits and nix 'em for positive new ones. Do this for forty days and then see how you measure up. Maybe you can't go cold turkey on all hot showers (Lord knows I love 'em, AMEN), but turning down the water heater a few degrees or shaving a few minutes off each shower can move you in the right direction. A direction consistent with finally putting in that new low-flow shower head ... or maybe showering with a friend.

Oh and in true Lenten fashion, you can cheat on Sundays if you want.

The Church of England is all over this idea with their Carbon Fast, which could also be a great option for consuming less carbon this Lent (PDF).

Personally, this isn't the first time I've tried to add the climate-connection to my Lenten journey. Last year I completely abstained from red meat (not intuitive to this Midwest meat-and-potatoes-raised girl) and designated one day each week to be car-free (also not so simple in the highway-happy Midwest).

So what happened? Basically, I learned to live without burgers, meatloaf, and steak in favor of more varied and healthier alternatives. I also figured out how to get around without the careless convenience of my car.

However, these next forty days I'm taking it one step further: A Very Vegetarian Lent.

For the resident High 'n Mighty Vegetarians and Vegans who scoff at this: I live with five other full-time volunteers on an extremely limited budget and must rely on their possibly meaty cooking most of the week. In fact, when I explained to my housemates that I was giving up meat for Lent, I received the following response, "Well, I'm still cooking dinner with meat on (Ash) Wednesday night."

Hmm ... sounds like an eating adventure and a climate challenge. Who's up for it?

For story: Lenten up already!
4 Comments | Post a Comment

Quarters

I remember in 4th grade, I used to keep this cardboard folder for Lent and would put a quarter in a slot for each day. At the end of the 40 days I would have saved...um...let's see, carry the 2...yeah, like 10 dollars and give it all to the Church (St. Anthony's of Padua).

So, maybe kids could save up little carbon credits. If they ride their bike instead of getting taxied by the minivan, for example.

J. Bailo Participant Texeme.Construct()

by jabailo at 12:20 AM on 08 Feb 2008

lenten promise

Oddly enough this is something my fiance and I had already discussed. One of the changes we agreed to make was one less hour of TV and computer usage a night. We can't cheat and say that because we went out that that was our hour either. We realize its a very small step but we are starting and looking for other ways to honor this time by being more in touch with ourselves and our environment. It will be the first step of many to alter our lives to make them less consumeristic and more sustainable. Next step is composting worms or so my fiance keeps saying :)

N. & J.

by badhuman at 9:12 AM on 08 Feb 2008

hurray the worms!

Very nice message, N&J!

Whatever some Christians think the purpose of Lenten observance is, it is not primarily about punishing ourselves for our sinfulness (though there may be a time and place for that). In fact, if we place too much emphasis on our own personal decision to jump through one or another moral hoop, secretly feeling good about how virtuous we are, we miss the opportunity to take to heart the lesson, "it is not all about me."

Good for the Church of England, for showing some admirable leadership for a change! The Archbishop of Canterbury totally screwed up and caved in on the issue of gay rights.

And wake up, all you "pro-life" Roman Catholics and other Christians, who badly need to do more deep thinking about what loving life entails!

The Eastern Orthodox have a notably different approach to Lenten abstinence than the one that has become common in Roman Catholicism. We Catholics are (or at least used to be) encouraged to abstain from some food or drink which we find pleasurable, e.g. chocolate or beer (an aunt of mine always gives up coffee, which is so horribly unreasonable that no doubt it makes the angels pull their hair and brings tears to the eyes of the Virgin Mary herself).

But the Orthodox try to keep a vegan-ish diet, which is supposed to imitate the diet of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: no meat (but possibly fish is allowed), no dairy products (!), no olive oil (!!), no alcohol (!!!). According to reports that I have heard, everyone is cranky during the week before Pascha (Easter); and after the Feast of Feasts early on the morning of Pascha, when all Lenten restrictions are at last put behind them, entire congregations of Russians, from the laity to the bishops, are said to get bombed on vodka.

In fact, I am moved by John Bailo's fortuitous reference to that great and well-loved early Franciscan, Saint Anthony of Padua, to adopt him (Anthony, not John) as my Lenten patron. Even as Saint Francis is an animal-lover, so is Saint Anthony: Francis famously preached to birds, but Anthony, rather less famously, preached to fish.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:12 PM on 08 Feb 2008

eating and not eating

The Serbian-American poet laureate Charles Simic, who is not only a worthwhile poet but also a consistently engaging reviewer regularly writing in The New York Review of Books, was interviewed by Deborah Solomon for last week's New York Times Magazine (2/3/08). And although he was talking about neither Lent nor environmentalism, one answer he gave struck me as appropriate to both:

<<
Solomon: ... you prefer writing about the bloodstained past. "The butchery of the innocent never stops," as one poem begins, although your work also offers consoling images of domesticity -- your mom in "her red bathrobe," your grandmother ironing, a lover who "stirs the shrimp on the stove."

Simic: It's a kind of feast-in-time-of-plague poetry. I always feel like if I am sitting here having a terrific meal with friends, yes, there is someplace else, not too far away, where something awful is happening.
>>

The traditional bit of wisdom that is enjoined upon the believers as the ashes are smeared on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday is,
"Remember, Man, that thou art dust,
And unto dust thou shalt return."

Reflecting upon our own mortality, and temporality and personal impermanence, is always a wise thing to do. But on top of that, upon further reflexion, it is just as good, or even better, to remember the mortality of all the living creatures around us, in whose lives perhaps "something awful is happening," or is certainly going to sooner or later.

Since the foundation of environmentalism is concern for the entire community of living creatures of the Earth, a bit of quiet Lenten recollection along these lines might be fitting, now and then.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:11 PM on 09 Feb 2008

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