Christian Bloggers UK – Easter Tag

Today is Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day), meaning that Lent is almost upon us. For many years this didn’t really mean anything to me – my family were not religious, we didn’t even bother having pancakes most years, and Lent was just something that bypassed me completely.

But in recent years I’ve tried to be a bit more focused on the opportunity this time of year gives us to reflect upon the way we’re living our lives (what do we need to give up?) as well as the historical, cultural, and spiritual meanings behind our Easter celebrations.

Which is why I was delighted to be tagged by Rachel from Mum on a Mission, who I recently discovered thanks to the Christian Bloggers UK Facebook Group. The premise is really easy – just 10 questions to answer – but it gives you the opportunity to reflect on what Lent and Easter means to you. If you’d like to join in, please feel free to copy and paste the list of questions at the end of this post!

1. How are you celebrating Lent this year?

This year I am planning to choose one item of clothing every single day and put it aside ready to donate to charity at the end of Lent. I saw the idea on a Facebook post from a Salvation Army Corps and thought it was brilliant, because it not only gets you to focus on “giving up” material goods that may be surplus to your needs, it also helps you give to others.

For me this is quite a big thing, because I rarely buy myself clothes. Most of my wardrobe consists of hand-me-down clothes, or items I’ve had for years (a prime example being that one of the dresses I wore for a blogging conference was over 10 years old!) Don’t get me wrong, I like clothes, I just cannot bring myself to justify buying new clothes when I have perfectly suitable ones in my wardrobe.

So, for me, giving away clothes is a massive deal, not just because I won’t be replacing them, but because I usually cling onto them until they are falling apart! But over the past couple of years I’ve been given quite a few items of clothing for Christmas presents and the odd hand-me-down, so my wardrobe is in need of a good clear out anyway. But instead of going through and trying to simply clear space, I am hoping that a daily requirement to purposefully choose one item to donate (and which will make a difference to someone else) will help me focus on how blessed I am and also how blessed it is to give.

Edited to add: I was honoured to be interviewed on Inspirational Breakfast about this on Tuesday 7th March – you can listen to the interview below.

 

2. What does Lent mean for you?

To be honest with you, I’m still trying to figure this one out. You’ll have noticed that I recently wrote about how I’m only just starting to even feel able to consider myself a Christian and my views certainly make it challenging. For instance, the idea of a ransom for our sins just doesn’t sit well with me, and yet that’s pretty crucial to the modern understanding of the message of Easter, right?

That’s not to say that it doesn’t mean anything to me. Last year I wrote a post on my other blog about called, “How and Why I’m Sharing the Easter Story with My Child”, which focused on my rather liberal interpretation of it all. So just because I haven’t figured it out yet, doesn’t mean I’m not working on it. In fact I am currently reading the book, “The Case for God: What Religion Really Means” by Karen Armstrong, which has reminded me how we don’t need to have it all figured out to seek a relationship with God.

As Karen writes, “[…] we think that the concept of God should be easy and that religion ought to be readily accessible to anybody. ‘That book was really hard!’ readers have told me reproachfully, shaking their heads in faint reproof. ‘Of course it was!’ I want to reply. ‘It was about God.'” Those were the second and third sentences in the book’s introduction, and I knew straight away I was going to love it! It is hard going, it isn’t something you can just pick up and read anywhere – it makes you question and think and sometimes I have to read a sentence 2 or 3 times before it really sinks in. But I love it all the same, because of the very fact it reminds me that God is so unimaginably huge, it’s okay that I haven’t got an answers to these questions.

3. What things have you given up for Lent in the past, and did you succeed or fail?

I haven’t given much up in the past to be honest, because I’m usually totally disorganised and realise part way through that it’s Lent and I’ve already missed the beginning of it! However I did partially give up social media a few years ago. I say partially because it was quite a last minute thing and I knew that there were the odd things coming up which people would contact me about via social media rather than via email. So I logged in occasionally to check nobody had sent me a direct message or tagged me, but I didn’t log in daily, I didn’t scroll down the timeline, and I didn’t respond to anything other than direct messages which required a response.

I really enjoyed the break from social media actually, and ended up having a social media hiatus (especially from Facebook and Twitter) for several months at the beginning of last year. Stepping away really helped me to understand how much of an impact it had on my life (my anxiety levels improved dramatically!) and I was really quite hesitant to go back to it, especially Facebook which had become quite toxic to me. When I did return, I limited my profile and timeline and friends list significantly, making sure I only saw certain updates, and began using groups more effectively rather than simply scrolling my timeline. That all made a real difference to my experience of it, and it was all thanks to taking a break.

I think that’s where Lent is really powerful – by giving something up for 40 days you begin to see the impact that thing had on you. If it’s really challenging for you to give something up, then that thing has more control over you than it probably should have. “Everything in moderation” is a great phrase, but sometimes we have to step completely away from something to realise what we thought was moderation was in fact excessively impacting on our lives. We can then go back with a better mindset and create a better relationship with whatever it was, be it social media, certain foods, or bad habits.

4. Have you ever taken part in an Easter bonnet competition? ( If so post the picture for us all!)

No, I can’t say I have. I remember my mum making Easter Bonnets for the kids when she was a childminder, but I don’t think we ever made any. I’m not even 100% sure what it entails, to be quite honest with you. I’m off to Google Easter Bonnets now…

5. What is your favourite pancake topping?

Hmmm, the few times we had them growing up it was simply lemon and sugar. Then when I went to Russia at the end of my first year of uni and then again during my third year, I discovered a whole new appreciation for pancakes.

There were little kiosks at the end of many roads, where they made a HUGE pancake on a massive griddle pan (using what looked like a squeegee window cleaning thing to get an even coverage) and then they dolloped your topping in the middle and deftly folded it over itself several times until you got a lovely little square package. My favourite topping was always chocolate spread for those!

We also went round to tea at someone’s house once (we’d met her at a school event we’d been asked to speak at) and she brought out a massive stack of pancakes and various toppings for us to enjoy whilst we listened to music and she practised her English with us. Another time we went to a school event with younger kids, and the mums had brought various snacks, including pancakes, for us to enjoy. Seriously, pancakes work for any occasion!

Tonight I’ll be making a big stack of pancakes and TJ and I will enjoy some of them as savoury ones (with cheese, ham, salami etc) and some as sweet desserts (with fruit, jam, and lemon and sugar). I have always preferred savoury over sweet whereas TJ has a sweet tooth, so making a mix works really well for us. Little Man does not like pancakes, so he’ll be having fishfingers and chips haha

I’d like to point out that my husband managed to convince himself that last Tuesday was pancake day, even waking me up with the pancake song! And in my half-awake state I agreed to making pancakes that evening. So we’ve already had a trial run, because I didn’t work out until afterwards that he’d got the wrong week haha

6. How do you celebrate Easter Day?

Honestly, we don’t have a specific way of doing this. As a child it really wasn’t a big deal for us. Even though we were off school for the holidays, all I really remember is that it was usually my Grandma’s birthday and that mine was coming up too. We didn’t even have Easter eggs – my mum preferred to buy us a bar of chocolate and give us a few squares each day through the holiday.

Last year was the first time I went to church on Easter Sunday for a long time (perhaps even only the second time ever, I can’t quite remember). It was a really lovely service, we were all given a daffodil to take to the front and add to the display around a cross, and the Minister made it really accessible to even the youngest people there. So we shall be going to church again this Easter Sunday too.

We’ll probably also do some kind of roast dinner, because we don’t eat meat very often and it’s nice to make it a real treat. Then we may take a walk in the local park to get out and celebrate Spring too – new life!

7. What is your favourite Easter food?

I don’t really have any foods I associate with Easter. My dad played football every Sunday until he turned 40, and so he didn’t really want a big roast dinner at the weekend. We used to have our roast dinner in the middle of the week, so it was rare we’d have anything special on Easter Sunday. I think we might have gone to my Grandma’s once or twice, but I think that was when Easter fell on her birthday more than just an Easter celebration.

I can’t even say chocolate is my favourite Easter food, because I’ve always had to limit my intake of it. During my teens I didn’t touch chocolate for several years, as we weren’t sure whether it was contributing to my migraines. And even though I eat it now, it still affects me if I eat more than a small bar a day (sometimes even that affects me). I think maybe I need to create a new food tradition for our family…

8. What would you encourage others to think about during Easter time?

I think, for me, it is all about hope – even after the darkest days of our lives there can still be the most beautiful and transforming light that shines upon us. Whether you understand that in the Christian story of the Resurrection, or in a more secular view of Spring coming after the harsh Winter months, I think that message of hope is something we all need, now more than ever.

9. What activities do you take part in during Holy Week?

Um… none.

Actually, I once went with my friend (whose parents are Salvation Army Officers) on the Good Friday Walk of Witness, where various churches come together and walk down the High Street to the Cenotaph together. We randomly bumped into my Grandma there and so she and two of her church friends took me and my friend for dinner at the local hotel, which sticks in my mind as a really beautiful day of “togetherness”.

But other than that I really haven’t done anything during Holy Week. Maybe Little Man and I will take part in the Good Friday Walk of Witness this year…

10. Who else would you like to nominate to take part in the Easter Tag?

Okay, so I’m going to tag my friend Rachel, from Life Story, who is the only other mum with a young child at our church. We have some really fascinating chats about Christianity and faith, however I know that this may not fit on her website. So you’re not obliged to take part, Rachel!!

I’d also like to tag Lizzie Somerset, who I’ve come to know better this past year through a couple of Facebook Groups and the Share The Joy linky. It will be good to read your answers to these, Lizzie!

Finally, I’m going to tag Peter from Inspired By Faith, who to be honest would probably have taken part without the tag as I know he writes regularly about his faith. However Peter had a wonderful conversation with me when I first joined the Christian Bloggers UK Facebook Group and I’d love to read his answers to these questions!

And if I haven’t tagged you but you still want to take part, please do feel free to simply do so! All you have to do is copy and paste the questions below into your own blog post, and then share it with others. Have fun!

1. How are you celebrating Lent this year?
2. What does Lent mean for you?
3. What things have you given up for Lent in the past, and did you succeed or fail?
4. Have you ever taken part in an Easter bonnet competition? ( If so post the picture for us all!)
5. What is your favourite pancake topping?
6. How do you celebrate Easter Day?
7. What is your favourite Easter food?
8. What would you encourage others to think about during Easter time?
9. What activities do you take part in during Holy Week?
10. Who else would you like to nominate to take part in the Easter Tag?

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Please note: there is an affiliate link in this post – if you click on the link to Amazon and purchase Karen Armstrong’s book, I will receive money for this.