Lenten Promises

Doug has never promoted giving up something for Lent to the Heinisch children.  Instead he has always stressed moderation throughout the year as the best way to honor the sacrifices of Jesus Christ.  Meg and Brett, however, decided a long time ago to join the Catholic tradition by giving up something they cherished for Lent each season.  This year Meg gave up Tik-Tok on social media.  She thoroughly enjoyed the video app while at IU, but thought that it was interferring with her study time.  She told me a few times during the past seven weeks that she really didn't miss the videos that much and was glad to have spent her time working on classes instead.

Brett, however, struggled with his Lenten promise this year, especially during the middle weeks of March.  He had decided to give up playing video games for Lent.  He felt that they were too distracting and wanted to focus on other interests.  It was easy for him at first, but then the stay at home order was issued by the Governor.  Thus, Brett had way more free time than he had planned during Lent.  He and I had talked about his options.  First, he could continue his promise and stay away from video games for the entire season.  Second, he could allow himself to play games on Sundays only as that day had traditionally been deemed as a free day from Lenten promises.  Lastly, he could throw in the towel and say that he tried his best.  I was proud of the fact that he chose the first option. It wasn't always easy for him to fill his time, but thankfully his job, a challenging puzzle, reading and writing all kept him busy enough through the long weeks of social distancing.  I talked to Brett tonight and he said that he was up early Easter morning to play an hour or so of Mafia 3 on the PS4 before work and then was back at it once he got home.  By the end of the day Monday, however, he was actually ready to go back to reading and writing.  The break made him realize that he didn't miss video games as much as he thought that he would and had a whole lot of other things going on in his life that he would prefer to do instead.  I was very impressed by that.