I want to have a great big party on my Facebook wall when this social media fast ends at 12:01 a.m. Easter Sunday. But before I get to the celebration, I want to note: My Facebook Fast has been more than worthwhile.
In the early weeks, I wondered if I’d made this big, hairy deal about what a spiritual experience it would be to give up socializing on FB for Lent. Would it turn out to be nothing more than self-imposed isolation? Would I give up my FB friends only to wallow in Netflix Instant Watch?
My understanding is that we give up something that matters to us during Lent. Sometimes it’s something bad that we want to be rid of. Sometimes it’s something good, making way for us to contemplate things spiritual, possibly the nature of sacrifce. In a Salt Lake City newspaper story about people who were considering giving up FB for Lent, a Lutheran pastor said, “”The whole point of Lent is a time of getting closer to God. The point is to leave selfish behavior behind you, to put off the ’self.’ Facebook is almost a shrine to yourself, with pictures, status updates, seeing if people ‘like’ you. It’s all about you.”
I’ll argue that point some other time. But with one week to go in my Lenten Facebook Fast, I want to share the common thread I see running through my experience. Not surprisingly, it is hunger.
First came hunger for my community. Friends, family, people I respect and love who challenge me to think more broadly and to share more of myself. Over a few weeks, that hunger for simple interaction ultimately gave way to a focus on the deeper hunger for intimacy, a core hunger that goes back to childhood for me. When I reached that level of hunger, I had what may be a commonplace response: I started throwing food at the hunger. Result: two weeks ago my weight hit an all-time high.
As we all know, there’ll never be enough ice cream and cookies and pie — no, not even pie — to fill emotional hunger. So after the scale spiked and I ran through every episode of Monk and Mad Men, the hunger to connect intensified. I began to journal more. I wrote new poetry. I blogged. The pace of the blogging picked up. One night I wrote three new blog posts, one right after another.
Now, in the final days, I find myself going deeper into stillness, where there is no hunger and sometimes, in especially soft moments, there is no self. There is only the stillness, which is so full. Too full for words.
“..I find myself going deeper into stillness, where there is no hunger and sometimes, in especially soft moments, there is no self. There is only the stillness, which is so full. Too full for words.” This is beautiful, my dear friend, and I plan on saving it as one of my most favorite quotes.