Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

He is Risen!

Instead of just writing down about my day celebrating Easter, I thought I'd comment on Lent and what it has done for me. I know when you fast or give something up for God that you are supposed to focus on collecting your reward in heaven which is why many say people should not say anything about fasting and Lent and such. But I feel like from some of the comments I've gotten during Lent, I would like to reflect about this year's experience.

This year was different for me. I thought about what I would give up long and hard. During Lent, many people thought I was crazy for giving up so many things. I actually only gave up 3 things in my life that are important to me. I knew I wanted to give up things that I would truly feel the need to rely on God for when I was tempted. To be honest, I failed many several times and cheated many times. In a couple of instances, I was almost legalistic about how I was participating in Lent, which was wrong of me. But overall, the experience was good and it led me closer to God. I have created several spiritual habits that should have been habits before this, and leaning on God is never a bad thing.

Two people in my life made comments about Lent that really affected how I thought of Lent. The first was my friend Vincent who asked me why I participated in Lent and if it was biblical. He also wondered at the reason why Christians actually chose to participate in Lent. It led me to much thought and this is my answer. Everything that you do for God, should be between you and God, it should be done only after much prayer and communion with Him as well as guidance from your Christian brothers and sisters. Lent is similar to Fasting in which you give up something in order to focus on God. Many people fast when they need spiritual guidance. For me, Lent is the period in which I give up whatever is most important in my life so that I can refocus my life, reorder what is important to me and give God the glory he deserves. I do not have scripture to back up my thoughts, but I believe my thoughts are in the right direction at least. Carmen, another friend, reminded me that Lent is pointless if I make a point to announce to people what I'm doing. She helped me to see that compensating for my meatless-ness was wrong when I would tell people what I was doing for Lent so that they would accommodate me. I was reaping my rewards on this earth. I did find that participating in Lent gave me opportunities to bring up God with many people I wouldn't normally talk to about Him. So there were many blessing in Lent this season.

What is Boredom?

I find myself perpetually bored. But the thing that I most wonder when I'm bored and when I'm not, is What the heck is boredom? Is it the feeling of laziness? Is it a lack of challenge? Maybe a lack of interest? Whenever I ask someone what their definition of boredom is, I get a long rant of nothing and then a shoulder shrug.

So I ask, What is Boredom? Why do we have it and why are so many people of my age and younger bored? Why do we lose interest so quickly and what can we do to fix it? I have no idea.

I wrote this because I'm bored. My boredom has always been quite funny to me. When I am bored, I putter around playing mindless games like tetris until I get SO bored that I actually go do something like write a blog post on boredom. Yeah so.....That's my contemplation and rambling for the day. PEACE!