Looking for something to give up for Lent? Here's an idea...

If you're stuck struggling to think of something to give up for Lent and want to avoid the typical cliches like chocolate, booze or smoking, this article from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph (Lent: Are we giving up for the right reasons?) may help you look at Lent more broadly....

The author writes, "Lent, in the Christian tradition, is usually a time to think of someone other than yourself. Most obviously Jesus, whose 40 days of suffering, deprivation and temptation by the Devil in the desert is the blueprint for Lent. We are meant to find some - embarrassingly pale - way of following his example.

He stuck it out, the gospels report, to save us from eternal damnation. And so, in our Lenten fasting, we need to be doing something for others..."

Would it be possible for you to give something up that at the same time would benefit others?

The article suggests finding ways to reduce your carbon footprint and giving that up for Lent.

"We should all give up carbon emissions for Lent." The author writes, "Or at least reduce our footprint. It will involve real renunciation - aka mortification - by curtailing our travelling and turning down our central heating. It will therefore save money, which can be directed to charitable ends.

Reducing your carbon footprint will also benefit others - both by tackling global warming and by making us acknowledge that we are collectively responsible for the world's fate."

Perhaps my favourite part of the article is this:

''Mortification," Pope Paul VI wrote in 1966 on the subject of doing penance in imitation of Christ, ''aims at the liberation of man, who often finds himself almost chained by his own senses."

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