coup d'tea

Lent and all that!

So, Lent fast approaches. I usually make some token gesture in the way of confectionary towards this season of abstinence, but this year i’m planning something different!

If you don’t know, Lent is the period of time before Easter that the Christian Church has used as a reminder of the hardships that Jesus went through before he was crucified, but also it is an opportunity to give up something within your life that perhaps you don’t need. That custom relates to when Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism by John the Baptist. The tradition took a fairly drastic turn during the Middle Ages when some took to self-flagellation (isn’t that always the way?!!) but nowadays is largely seen as a way preparing for a lot of Easter Eggs!

In The Bible there’s quite a few examples of people having to wait 40 days, or even 40 years. Moses and the rest of the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years, Noah waited 40 days for the flooding to stop, and of course in more recent times, that dreadful film Forty Days and Forty Nights tried to persuade us that a life without sex for forty days was somehow a lower standard of living. It was no Uncle Buck, that’s for sure!

Anyway, this Lent, I’m undertaking a project that I hope can at least re-convince me of the worth of giving certain things up. What I’m planning is for the 7 weeks of Lent, to take a different stance from my 21st century perspective, so that something may be rediscovered! I’m doing this because I believe that I as both a human and a christian, but also you as an agnostic, atheist, buddhist, hindu, jew, muslim, rastafarian, sikh or zoroastrian believe that perhaps some aspects of our world can be better than this!

The Seven Weeks look like this… The number represents what I’ll be doing that week!

1. No money will be spent. This will probably involve hitch-hiking, working in exchange for goods, and bin-diving.
2. No technology will be used. I was born in 1982, so if it didn’t exist then, I can’t use it! No iPhone, no computer, no internet, and so on. I am going to write a lot of postcards, and hope that you will write to me too!
3. Purchases only from Independent Traders. Exeter was considered by an independent body to be the worst “clone town” in the UK, based on the number of High Street stores not part of a chain (there was 1 independent). I will only be buying from indies for everything, and all products will be independently produced also!
4. I will be Carbon Neutral. Tough one this! Obviously I won’t drive, catch a bus etc, but the aim is to exist on things that have not travelled either! I will be visiting my parents this week too, on my bike!
5. Voluntary employment. Every day, I will give my working day to an organisation that needs volunteers. This situation will increase massively given the recent cuts made by the government. I hope for a busy week!
6. Veganism. I will not eat a single ingredient that has anything to do with an animal. I value the farming community a lot, but there are too many people in the world to all eat animal products. This will have to be addressed at some point in the future. I will be feeding my friends a full 3 course meal as part of this task!
7. Monasticism. Essentially I will be living as if in a Monastery! Up before dawn, no eating during daylight hours. Prayer 3 times a day, a vow of silence, plus a Pilgrimage to a distant chapel!

So, there we are! Each week will feature a challenge, and everything will be recorded here, and will be filmed. I’d also like to encourage you to give things up, but also get onboard with certain things that I need help with!

If you have any ideas, you can e-mail me at jon_shoe@hotmail.com

i’m on twitter @joncutups where i’ll be undoubtedly griping, and if you could forward this to anyone who might be interested, that’d be great!

2 March 2011 ·

• Tags
• lent
• methodism
• vegan
• monastic
• carbon neutral
• independent shops