How to Fail

Here I am, for Lent I gave up some of my time to focus on blogging about Lent...and then for two weeks I don't post a single blog.

There is only one correct way to fail... and that is by realizing the failure and taking corrective action... so here I am again.

How To Explain The Holy Trinity

My favorite way to explain The Holy Trinity to folks is as follows...

The Trinity is like a game of 'Dungeons and Dragons.'

In the place of The Father you have the Game Master... an actual person who exists outside the game world.

For the Son, you have the Game Master's avatar...his player character...who he is in the game world.

The Holy Spirit, is the rules of the game as applied by the Game Master... because the 'rules' are the Game Masters 'Will.'

All three of those represent the same person.

Simple.

Giving Up Giving up

When we really put our minds to something we can usually accomplish it in the long run... the problem is that we will usually turn our mind to giving up on a challenge we are facing. How we deal with a challenge depends on what it is and understanding our motivations is key to being able to maintain them.

Being motivated is a tricky business. Those of us who served in the military may remember 'motivational runs' which were usually the last thing we wanted to do. One of the keys of being motivated is experiencing success... but it's not really the 'win' that motivates you... it the meaning of the victory. Once we see that it is the meaning of the victory that affects it's motivational value we can assess whether our pregress is satisfactory.

Being satisfied with our progress is extremely important with program we might use to accomplish our goals. Particularly with a 'baby step' type process it's very easy to get unmotivated by the apparent lack of valuable progress. So it is imperative that any such program have a method to include valued benchmarks.

Alternativly there is the apprioach of setting a large goal which if the task is time consiming may seem daunting. However large goals are very satisfying to accomplish. I personally like to set extremely grand goals that are safe to fail. Usually they do fail, but being able to apply what I learned to new projects constantly improves my abilities.

Going until you hit a brick wall is an extremely useful ability because so often a lot of what we want, even on 'this side of the wall' may rest very close to it. So having the confidence to 'get in over your head' sometimes can lead to your success 'right before you do.'

Porn Addiction

Giving up porn for Lent probably 'should' be the most common vice to give up in the world. So lets take a look at methods to break this addiction.

Remove your access to porn.
some people have had luck with filters to block pornographic sites. However, filters can be disabled, especially if the addict is the one installing them.

When it comes to porn, the threat of shame is a very useful tool in many cases and that is what is used by many of the techniques. Simply move the computer out of the office, or set it in a way so the screen is viewable from the door. Kids should never have private access to a computer. Also, accountability filters will email another person when you access blocked sites. The problem with using shame, however, is what happens if the addict gets caught? The embarrassment can be devastating.

Remove time for porn.
This is probably the most difficult but most productive method of attempting to break the addiction. Even though internet porn is very easy to access, it can still take time to find the material you are looking for...so make yourself busy. Get movies from the library go for long walks or a long run...do anything that's going to occupy yourself for at least an hour or two. Sleeping is an option!

Remove desire for porn.
The psychological affects of sexual addiction can be fairly profound. Not only can it effect how you feel about yourself at affects how you interact with others. So what are the interactions that you are missing? Or how have your interactions been corrupted? A therapist is probably someone you'll need to talk to, but closely examining yourself and how you want to change will help the process.

Adding a Virtue

Adding a virtue for Lent is a noble task. Some might argue that adding a virtue despite maintaining a number of vices is futile work because the vices still hold you away from God. I think that that is a selfish view, however, and think that any good we can add to the world is worth while for the benefit of others.

Let's look at a couple of the main 'Christian Virtues.'

Faith is our acceptance of God's Will and our trust in salvation.

Hope is found in our salvation. We should never have a reason to despair because if we also have faith we will trust in our final victory and eternity with God.

Charity and Love is the loving kindness we need to show others. We can trust in our salvation, but others don't have that feeling of hope.

Lent Doesn't Count On Sunday

Sunday is a feast day. A lot of us use the weekend to catch up around the house. So for Lent, lets remember that we're supposed to relax and enjoy some time off. Read, watch a movie, do something outside, go to lunch with parents...anything that we want to do, just take the time to enjoy your time.

Giving Up The vice

A vice is generally described as a habit that tends to cause someone one to sin. For example, lets say the sin we wanted to work on was drunkenness.

One solution would be to completely give up alcohol. However we could also examine why we actually get drunk, the reason is simply that we drink too much, then we have to honestly look at our habit. Why am I drinking so much and how much am I drinking?

When it comes to drinking two much think think there are a couple different mindsets. One is a compulsive person, they empty their glass, and then get it refilled, repeat. Others actually enjoy being drunk. You should see that those are very different psychological problems.

Compulsive behavior is a very common and very treatable syndrome, you could probably successfully treat yourself. One way is to find a way to physically limit yourself. Only bring enough money for one or two drinks and leave the credit card at home, maybe even ask the bar tender to help you keep your limit.

People, like myself, who enjoy being drunk have a different problem. This is more closely related to the substance abuse aspects of alcoholism. If you're lucky you get horribly sick one time too many and consciously decide to not do it again. Otherwise I would strongly suggest locating a rehab program of some sort. I am pretty strict about my limits, at a bar I will at most drink two beers, at a long party no more than one an hour with nothing but water in the last hour.

Giving

Being charitable has managed to develop a bit of controversy in it's practice. For my purposes I completely exclude tithing from 'giving' and talking about more straight forward 'giving to the needy.

We all know the "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime." But what do we do with those who just won't fish?

I think the key aspect of giving that a lot of us don't understand is the concept of mercy. We tend to think that we need to 'help' people and yes it would be great to help people some people just don't want to be helped no matter how miserable they are. The ability to show mercy is a blessing to the giver and it reminds us that we can be much worse off.

The worry most of us have with giving directly to the poor is that they are going to waste the money on drugs or alcohol and that they will become dependent on that money and never become productive. Thats a valid worry, so fortunatly there are a number of charities we can give the money to.

But! We walk down the street in a not so great area and some one asks if we got a couple bucks for the bus, or would like to 'give to a charity.' Typically we lie and say "No I don't have any cash." other times we pull out out wallet only to have it knocked out of our hands and run off with... other times they say "Thank you" and maybe offer a really good joke in return.

We need to examine ways to make giving more successful, by growing our level of mercy, and by getting more of that mercy to be 'helpful.'

I will start on this topic with one tip. In this age of electronic money there isn't much of a reason to carry any cash except an amount that you are willing to give away. So don't tightly pack that cash in your wallet, make it easially accessable so if someone asks for money, you can just grab the cash and the wallet stays in the pocket. It has the added benifit of, if you really are robbed they can take your wallet and you still have a bit of cash to cover imeadiate needs, like the bus or dinner.

Fasting

One of the more notable traditions of Lent is fasting.

The problem I think a lot of us have with using Lent as a time to expand our relationship with God is that we usually sacrifice something that we fully intend to resume after Easter. I'm not saying that giving up a vice is better than giving up a luxury... I'm saying many of us give up vices and resume them at the end.

Giving up a Luxury
Depending on how you want to use the time of Lent, giving up a luxury is a very valid way to expand your relationship with God. A lot of luxuries can fall under vices, but we shouldn't get carried away. A lot of modern conveniences are just amazing. We can buy pre-cooked food and have it delivered to our door, we can buy a copy of almost any song we want to listen to in a few seconds, and many more. By giving up luxuries, we grow by seeing just how lucky we are to be living now and we warn ourselves from feeling a sense of entitlement. Freeing ourselves from entitlement is a very important action for Christians. Realizing that we are not entitled to anything, but that everything is a gift, is a central concept of our relationship with God.

Giving Up a Vice
Probably the most common choice among those who choose to observe Lent, atleast among Protestants is giving up a vice. Usually these are also luxuries like alcohol, coffee, chocolate... sometimes porn, drugs, or other addicitions even facebook is one I've seen reciently.

I think one of the key issues with choosing to give up a vice is trying to make it permanent. It's a vice! We shouldn't be practicing it anyway! So instead of going though Lent, building up our sense of withdrawl, and then being distracted through Holy Week in anticipation of resuming our addiction, maybe we should focus a lot more on breaking the addicition insead of just abstaining.

How does chocolate fit in to that, it doesn't really, but over eating does. It's the addicitions that are the vice not the actual thing that your are addicted to. If your vice is drugs, alcohol, or over eating those are very important issues that need to be solved...and if you want to take your faith seriously you need to seriously confront them.

As this blog progresses I'll be looking at ways to confront those addictions.

Prayer - Making It Useful

Prayer is simply the communication between us and God. We commonly say that prayer is powerful, but we never look into what makes it so powerful.

All of us know how to sit down and ask God for things. In my opinion, however, what makes prayer actually powerful is the time we spend listening to Gods reply. I would bet that most of us are terrible at that listening so lets look at a couple ways we can pay attention.

Signs
They have to be included as a answer to prayer because they do happen. However, like in the movies, I think constantly asking for one tends to make you look like a jerk... especially when you happen to ignore it anyway.

Gut Feeling
It's almost funny how we can sit in a situation and ask for 'guidance' when we have a burning instinct to do something. We have the ability to tell right from wrong so lets try choosing the right every once in a while. So next time you make your prayer, quiet yourself and ask what it is that you are driven to do. Denial plays a big role in obstructing this method. The answer is right there, but we are either afraid or don't want to believe that it's that simple.

Dreams (Meditation)
This is the method I use a lot... and I'm including meditation in it because my meditation is always image based. The problem that dream interpretation has over something like the gut feeling is that the message has to be correctly interpreted. I would go on to say that the solution is simply picking a dream interpretation book or website and telling God that that's the reference you'll be using... most of them are fairly similar though... I like dreammoods.com because of it's modern references and use of color and numbers.... the search function is very good as well.

It's Not New Years

Lent is an ‘optional observance’ in much of Western Christianity which in my experience is mostly related to giving up a favorite food. However, Lent lasts for well over a month so maybe we should look at the importance and and the practice of this major observance.

First question though is - “Whats the point?” Lent is supposed to prepare Christians for Holy Week…that week leading up to Easter… but what are we actually trying to accomplish? The extremely summarized answer is that we’re trying to relate to the sacrifice of Jesus so the celebration of Easter is ‘that much better.’ I think our current use of Lent as a way to get kids off sugar for a month is wasting an opportunity for us to grow as Christians. Maybe if we focused less on giving up rather trite but addicting luxuries that we fully intend to resume Post-Easter, like caffeine or alcohol, and spend more time on making deeper examinations and changes to ourselves we could actually make a difference in the world.

So throughout Lent I will be examining in the blog aspects of Lent and how we can better accomplish what we probably should be doing all year.