I’ve found that most casually religious people I know who grew up with a religion in their family, usually pay attention to at least one holiday or religious rule. I have Jewish friends who will do nothing except try their best to not eat bread on Passover, or won’t do any work for one Sabbath a year (i.e. turn on a light). I’m a textbook Cafeteria Catholic who happens to pay close attention to Lent.
I use the holiday to try to better myself and show that I can give something up for 40 days. In the past I’ve given up: meat, coffee, cookies, sugar, French fries (I LOVE French fries), beer, and a few other things. I look at it as an excuse to try something different – I may not be a vegetarian, but I have a taste of what it’s like (no pun intended). I would argue that Odysseus did the same thing when he ordered his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship, so that he could hear the songs of the Sirens as they sailed by.
A few years ago, a friend of mine (Nicole) suggested that I could give something away instead of giving something up. I thought this was a brilliant idea, so that year I donated something to charity/goodwill for every day of lent. It started with a couple things I had lying around the house, and eventually I was de-cluttering my home of stuff I had stored away for years. I was amazed how positive it was: I was refocusing what many people feel as an internal religious experience into an external one.
I struggled quite a bit with what I wanted to do this year, and decided I wanted to help the industry I’m involved in. I will be donating to a free or open source project for every day of lent. I use quite a bit of open source tools every day, and I’m admittedly too lazy to bother to donate. The truth is, I would probably buy an app on my iPhone without even thinking about it, but some of these developers of open source projects would love $3 dollars. Even if it only buys a beer, at least they get some recognition for their time.
I also thought it would be a cool way of promoting certain tools I use every day. I’m always curious as to the tools other people use for certain tasks, so maybe my list will help someone else find the tool they have always been searching for. I plan to post each donation on twitter (http://twitter.com/jjerome). I don’t have a lot of followers on Twitter, but it makes a nice way to keep an active list.
I already have a list of ideas, but not quite 40 of them. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
You can see my progress on my twitter account: http://twitter.com/jjerome
