Monday, March 12, 2012

Sacrifice What Feeds You.

This past week's challenge was to sacrifice what feeds you.


I might have taken the easy way out, but this week I chose to abstain from meat. It wasn't very hard at first, but by Thursday I was sick of pasta and just wanted some chicken. What it made me realize, in the simplest way, was how incredibly blessed and fortunate I am - especially in regards to my access to food. I was choosing to only eat a certain type of food (pasta, rice, etc) while there are millions of people in the world who have no say in what they eat or whether or not they even can eat. My very, very small sacrifice brought me a small taste of solidarity with the hungry and allowed me to recognize my privilege even further. It is a privilege that I can even take on these forms of sacrifice, that I can even consider living simply or chose to abstain from a certain type of food.


I think it is important that I continue to recognize this privilege and what exactly that means. A lot of what I learned this past week was echoed over the weekend. I need to delve deeper into those things as they come up, so hopefully I can be a bit more insightful tomorrow. 


However, I think that I am realizing more and more how much my background and the privilege my family provided me with is ingrained into every single thing that I do. I'm not sure if I would have realized this as profoundly as it is hitting me now if I had not created space in my life by giving up social media. What I love about doing these Relentless ACT:S of Sacrifice challenges is how they beautifully compliment my desire to live simply and my desire to give up social media. I pray that when lent is over I can continue to incorporate what I am learning into my daily life. But before I can do that, it means sitting with what I am discovering, really getting into the hard stuff, and understanding how each of these things play into my every day life.

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