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On Lent 2025

  • Writer: Kyle K.
    Kyle K.
  • Mar 7
  • 6 min read

This will be the first Lent that I’ve fully participated in.


I’ve had a bit of a beckon in my soul to participate more heavily in the church calendar that Catholics, Anglicans and other denominations have historically observed and participated in. My suspicion is that part of this is an “ought” - a feeling that I should be doing this with the large chunk of the Church that does so. Add a (disordered) feeling that other followers of Jesus would question the integrity of my faith by my lack of participation, and I was doomed to participate.


However, I do have more honest and sober realizations that are compelling me to participate.


The first is that I love to swim in the “otherness” of the moments in the year that point to Christ. Good Friday in particular has been a surprising gift to which my endearment and attachment to Christ has been made stronger through reflection on His sacrifice. I’m compelled by the theology and liturgy of the seasons - though admittedly, I have higher and grander visions of what that will be like. Then, the day after the season wraps, I feel like I “missed it” or didn’t get what I was supposed to get out of it. And maybe that’s true, but even so, that’s too much expectation and pressure to place on it for it to be fruitful.


The second (and likely best) reason is the opportunity to be further restored to full union with God by engaging in the disciplines and particulars of the season. 


Fasting from food allows me to respect that too many folks go hungry in this world. That I depend heavily on food for more than just sustenance. That cravings swing me into disorder.


Fasting from things that aren’t food? If wisely chosen, they allow me to starve out my key vices.


This lent, I’ve chosen to fast from browsing the web. Except for 10 minutes at the end of the day to check a few things, I can only open my phone’s browser for necessities. This ties in heavily with what I think the phone tends to not just exacerbate, but is the root aspect of the phone addiction: materialism.


Too often I’m browsing the web wondering about what I can buy, what new technology is coming out, scoping for deals that might give me an excuse to make a purchase. It creates disordered relationships with things that I find joy in: my personal fashion, technology, books… Nothing is free from the grasp of this gluttony.


My hopes for this targeted fast are:


  • To help me to refocus my time on things that matter more - my family, my vocation, my life, reading, etc.

  • To be more present - to God, to my family, to myself, to the world I live in and the places in it I find myself.

  • To starve out my desire for material items - forcing the beast of “thing-love” to gnash and scream and writhe - to show me just how ugly and detrimental my allegiance with that beast has been.


If there is something that I’ve found to be helpful as a result of engaging with the Church calendar, it’s that it helps me to chart out disciplines and engage with them in a meaningful way. I’m rarely prompted to fast here and there, but having set times in the year to do so helps. I can prepare myself for it. I can know that there is a set duration to it. But, above all, the disciplines are filtered through the lens of the season that they fall in. In engaging with the theology, the liturgy, the theme, I’m compelled to stick with it.


Part of me feels guilty for not having a possible “better” reason to engage. To focus more on God. To point my attention more fully to the season. To be united with other followers as we fix our gaze on God’s love poured out into moments in time.


And truly, I want those things. But I haven’t been the best at doing the work of emptying out to more fully receive. I’m hoping that my targeted fasting choice will do just that - empty me out of the materialism and distraction that I gorge on to fill the hole in my soul. I’m not looking to shame myself over it - God has done too much work showing me how I was damaged by the brokenness of this place for me to go back to that. If God is highlighting it as the opportunity to return to God and to myself, then I don’t want to receive it as anything different or less.


And ultimately, I’ve had to - as The Spirit helped me to see it - “resign” to patience. The less time I’ve put into disciplines that restore me, the more work there is to be done. As someone else put it, it’s “a long obedience in the same direction”. It’s the erosion of the false self that allows the true self to be exposed and to live the life I was meant to live. 


I can’t control it, it comes at its own pace. 


I can’t force it, at risk of damaging the fruits through too much pressure.


All I can do is show up, be open, be willing, and allow my compass to be realigned as I keep moving.


That is what I hope that Lent will allow for me this year.


And so far, 3 days in, I’m fasting poorly but getting some fantastic fruit.


This week, my phone died. It was like losing a limb. I had some good reasons to be upset - I wasn’t planning for it financially, I was hoping to get more time out of my phone, and hoping to upgrade when I felt like the time was right.


So then, I ordered a new phone. And you know what? It’s ruining my week.


I’m a techy. I LOVE technology. It’s one of my favorite things. New technology and advancements get me excited. When something comes out that helps us do things better and with less effort, I’m pumped. And I’m adept with technology - if I had kept on an earlier path in life, I’d be maintaining a corporate network infrastructure instead of keying away at soul-dump right about now.


But the flip side - or rather, the dark side - of technology is that it’s always changing. Every time it changes, so do the product offerings. I’m constantly swayed by the new and shiny. 


And so, with a phone in the mail, I’m excited, I’m anticipating and I’m totally distracted. Holding fast to my fast, much less the hope of what it will do for my soul, is so difficult.


How frustrating, and yet, absolutely appropriate.


No joke, I was praying this morning and was so wrought over it’s hold on me I could feel my eyes well up and my soul drop below the ground I had my feet on. It hurt. It NEEDED to hurt. Hopefully, it was my crash into rock-bottom - one that I needed to move into a time of fasting, ready to give up the charade. Fasting from the food has been cake by comparison (and no, I didn’t intend for the pun, but I’m keeping it and claiming it).


Granted, it’s day 3. The fast tends to sting me more in the early stages than the latter. And while I want to make friends with my fasting and my suffering, I don’t want to lose the desperation. I need to get well. I need to be crucified for the millionth time - this time, to die to the materialism and distraction that suffocates my soul. I need to be resurrected anew into a glory that leaves behind the disordered relationship I have with “things” so that I can have the right relationship with them I’m supposed to have. 


I need Easter Sunday badly - but only if I’ve gone willingly to my cross and am nailed to it. If I don’t, then I won’t enter the tomb, and to not enter the tomb is to not exit it resurrected to new life.


And by God’s grace, I’ll hopefully repeat this process next Lent with a different vice. I’ve entered into a life of constant death and resurrection - which sounds great to say, but hurts to live.


I’ll write on how it all went after the Easter season is over. My expectation is to burst from the tomb with some good news.


May the God who came as man and died to restore us to the fullness and glory we were meant for give you wisdom and courage this Lent season.


 
 
 

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