John Pearson questions 'giving up'.
The above is triggered by the title of Alan Bennett's most recent splendid biography, Keeping on Keeping on. So, all this Lent stuff … Where in the Bible does it say that Lent is a time for giving up chocolates, biscuits or (supreme sacrifice on my wife's part) all coffee of any kind? As one who dislikes cigarettes myself and has not smoked even so much as an annual celebratory cigar for ten years or more (since smoking was banned at public dinners and the like) and has forsaken most alcohol, cake, chocolate and sugar on health grounds, what can I give up? I really do question 'giving up', not least since I heard from one source that during Lent Sundays are exempt and so you can, once a week, hit the biscuits for a quick top-up after all!
There could be seen to be a value in 'giving up' in solidarity with those who have little … It's good for the soul and all that … whereby we might seek to inflict on ourselves, for some short while at least, the standard of living of some who are less fortunate than us, whether at home or abroad. To this end, some years ago, my wife and I bought into the Christian Aid £1 a day idea for one week a year … So, instead of our usual comforting pile of shopping we purchased only as much sustenance (including both food and drink) as could be purchased on a budget of £1 per day per person. It can be done; a 70p bag of porridge lasts a week, that's breakfast catered for, 80p will buy you a week's tea bags if you share them, and so on. What you miss, apart from those 'unnecessary treats' we probably all love is sound nourishment.
Was this not somewhat of an affectation though … giving up what we could well afford to give up, pretending we had little, in a show of solidarity with those who really did? Just a week on such a diet was not going to kill us. As was the case with a one-time Newcastle MP who 'sacrificed everything' for a week in which he could live like the poor, we still had our car to get us around, free transport, still kept up the payments on the mortgage and so had a roof over our head, still kept the heating on, paid for by direct debit. And we already had adequate warm clothing. What were we really giving up? How could our lives truly be described as akin to those with insufficient or poor food, no roof over their heads, no affordable transport, no warm clothing, and so on?
Equally, it was hard to convince others that we were sincere; of the purpose of our mission. Colleagues saw what we were doing as 'worthy' and sought to reward us by buying us the very same coffees and cakes that we were denying ourselves. And was that not simply another class/privilege thing? If we had not moved in professional circles those we worked amongst could not have afforded the spare cash to offer us material support in that way, and so the charade continued …
If we must 'give up' something this Lent, then we should choose something really essential, something we just cannot live without. Perhaps we could give the money we save (the £50 or so of cash not spent on our own shopping?) to an appropriate charity. How many weeks would we keep that up for, though the need is always there? Talking of the really essential, I have a fond memory of attending a Lent House Group thirty something years ago now. One of the participants was an extremely earnest and pious young man, an Ordinand from an Oxford theological college. As he racked his brains for a sacrifice great enough to show his worthiness, I rather annoyed him by suggesting that since prayer was clearly of great importance to him, so satisfying and such a pleasure, he could perhaps give that up for a while?
John Pearson is a semi-retired lecturer at Northumbria University and Chair of SOF trustees.