happy fat tuesday!

happy fat tuesday!! tomorrow is ash wednesday, which begins the lenten season. for those of you unfamiliar with it, it is the six-week period before Easter extending for 40 days (excluding Sundays). it's a time for us to reflect on Jesus, repent for our sins, prepare ourselves for the Easter celebration, and renew ourselves in Christ.

i like to equate this time of anticipation to the time between thanksgiving and christmas. in a sense, it's a much more exciting holiday because easter celebrates life... well both do i guess... but easter celebrates invincible life. haha. anyways, enough of my nonsensical ramblings.

let's talk about lent and what i'm actually doing! this year i'm trying something new. i'm going offline for 40 days. unfortunately, since society nowadays is so dependent on the internet though, a pure offline period of time would not be perfectly feasible unless i moved in with the Amish people. but how nice it would be! well, such is life. i'm not Amish.

so this is what it means: i'm disconnecting e-mail from my phone for 40 days. i'm also not responding to text messages. i'll read them, but i'll call you back if your text needs a response. (with the exception of two people in this world, because with them and the context we need to communicate via text in, it will be inevitable and purely inconvenient.) so for you this means: please no last-minute updates or changes in schedule via e-mail. i won't get it on my phone. i'm also limiting my time on e-mail to 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes before bedtime, and 30 minutes before life group on tuesdays. this means not all e-mails will get a "reply", but i will respond to those necessary, and the ones that i can, i will take down your message and reply via phone. gchat and twitter will also be turned down, but not off... only because some of these undergraduates who are my friends only live on the internet and i have to keep up with them somehow...............

so why all this "inconvenience", you ask? it's because i've recently realized how unrelational and impersonal our society has become... and how much miscommunication happens through watered down "efficient" e-mail processes. and i absolutely hate it. friendships have become valued by quantity at the cost of quality. there's much white noise in my life through unnecessary text that feeds through my eyes from multiple sources.

ultimately, it all boils down to one thing: more peace and silence in my life to get refocused so i hear less of the world, and more of God's voice.

so... call me; let's meet up. let's really get to know and encourage each other, rather sending fluffy texts. :)

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a challenge to start: if you can call me and catch me during the day on tuesday, you will be rewarded one paczki!