Lured by Coffee and the Remote

Allison Gingras follows up her article on setting achievable health goals with some inspiring thoughts on using Lent to reach spiritual goals.

Goals can be easier to create than sustain — even if set with the greatest of intentions. Last month, I shared my desire to be healthy after a lifetime of neglecting myself. My bad habits included:

Lack of sleep and daily required water,
A penchant for all things sugar, and
Never making time to move or stretch my body. Oh, other than from bed to the office chair, and the chair to the fridge).

Although blessed with reasonably good health, I continued to ignore the facts of aging, assuming I would not suffer any ill health effects. For whatever reason, the lure of coffee and wine over water, working over walking, and chocolate over carrots has ruled how I care for my temple. In the wisdom that comes with age and with lots of loving nudges from the Holy Spirit, I'm finally learning to overcome the barriers I'd erected against healthy habits.

Eating and exercise are not the only aspects of my life I tend to neglect, for what, at least in my mind, appears to be an easier path. Spiritually speaking, I've also fallen for the lure of the path of least resistance. With my routine and go-to spiritual habits, such as Mass and Adoration, in-person church groups and book club, as well as retreats and "holy events" curtailed or on hold, I've found myself making excuses to avoid spiritual practices until "this is all over." While leisure is permissible and even beneficial, at times during the last year, I've used this pause to fill my time with less beneficial activities such as reality TV, scrolling social media, or playing mindless games on my phone.

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Much like I do with my physical well-being, I'd allowed the misconception that being holy is hard and takes lots of time to threaten the well-being of my spiritual life. And like my body, the shift from diligent to lukewarm and complacent came slowly and almost undetectable until I woke one day to realize I felt uneasy, disconnected, and suffering from the sin of acedia.

Lent, similar to the reset New Year gives me, offers me a time to take stock of all aspects of my life and make resolutions to do better. The tenets of Lent — prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — provide a framework for halting (every kind of) unhealthy habits and practices. An opportunity to reinstate ones that draw us out of the pit and closer to Christ. Even two weeks into Lent, there is still time for you to make changes and embrace this sweet, gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit given us through the liturgical calendar. It is a time to shake things up a bit, awaken our hearts for the Lord, revisit devotions, and truly improve our spiritual habits.

Lent is a time to shake things up a bit, awaken our hearts for the Lord, revisit devotions, and truly improve our spiritual habits. #catholicmom

In the last nine months of my healthy journey, I've made little headway on my weight goal. If I allowed that to be my only measure of success, I'd quit long ago; instead, I broadened my idea of success. Becoming more aware of so many changes and new habits is adding up to a healthier me. I've adapted this renewed view attitude towards my faith goals, too. In managing my expectations, focusing on what I have done (yet aware of what I still need to do), along with setting small attainable goals — I am beating the doubts and feeling rejuvenated.

One step toward reclaiming my spiritual well-being came in deciding, at the very least each night, to pray the Lord's Prayer. How could I not claim a victory in my goal to grow in faith for that day, knowing I was praying as Jesus himself taught when asked how to pray? I'd ironically made everything more difficult for myself, following what I mistakenly thought was the easier path. I've learned an important lesson — God never asks the impossible nor sets us up for failure. What can you do today to enter Easter reconnected and recharged?