bitful

Italy is a country of hypocrites.

I lived there for over twenty years, was close to most of the local clergy (my brother is a priest), people around me got baptised, confirmed, married in a church, buried with a funeral, and not once have I met anyone who was giving something up for Lent.

It was only when I moved to the UK that I was introduced to the concept of renouncing something that gives you pleasure (but that at the same time has a slightly negative connotation) during the forty days before Easter.

Always one to embrace all things British enthusiastically, I have been thinking for the last couple of days about what I could give up this Lent to help me shift the focus away from gratification of the body in order to reach a higher level of spiritual awareness. Or, failing that, lose a bit of weight.

Dr B. emailed me his plan yesterday:

Tomorrow I'm giving up all food from the vending machines at work, in particularly revels and muffins. Instead I shall be having fruit based snacks only from the shop. (If I'm working late and the shop has shut then I will allow myself ALTU's from the vending machine)

I have considered a few options and am very tempted to go with the hardest: no food and drink between 11pm and 7am, from today to Easter.

Eating during the night is possibly the single worst habit I have (since giving up smoking four years ago), and it is tightly linked with irregular sleep (i.e. not for very long, and most often not in bed), difficulty in maintaining oral hygiene after each of the half dozen nightly snacks, and morning sluggishness.

A vicious pattern has established itself whereby I cannot seem to fall asleep if I have not eaten in the previous twenty minutes. Or perhaps I wrongly believe that I will not be able to sleep on an emtpy stomach, which probably puts me in a state that does not facilitate sleep anyway.

During the day I need to eat little but frequently to avoid feeling weak.

At night I should not be needing as much energy, and I should allow the body to slow down and rest.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 11:49 am and last modified on February 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pm, and is filed under uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.