Struggling with Minimalism: A New Lenten Series

I was standing near the buffet at a church one day and witnessed something very strange. I saw two little girls stuffing as many of the cookies on the buffet as they could into their tiny pink purses. I rolled my eyes and laughed inwardly and judged them. Did they not know there would be cookies in the same place next week?And then I realized that they didn't. They had just arrived from Egypt a couple of weeks earlier. This was their first activity day at church. And yes, for them, cookies were a luxury that could not be guaranteed. They were still recovering from the trauma of leaving everything behind to start a new life, in a new place, where no one spoke their language, and here was a bounty. From their perspective, who knows! There may never be a chance at cookies like this again!Lent begins March 7 for the Coptic Orthodox Church. That means this week, we're eating all the things we're going to miss (cookies!), and thinking ahead to all the ways we're going to up our fasting game this year.If you look around at any Orthodox site these days, you'll see a lot of helpful advice for Lenten meal planning and some delicious Lenten recipes. While CDM will be featuring some of these things, my focus this year will not be on food. In fact, I told Abouna that we're eating one thing each week for seven weeks. He's such a good sport, God bless him, he said, "Fine by me." With the kids and their separate eating schedule, it will just be easier on me to focus on one central food per week. First week, red lentils (3atts). Second week, fava beans (foul). Third week, molokhia... and so on.The idea is that I don't want to think about food at all. Not this Lent. I will already be stuck cooking fitari food for the kids, and that's enough mental gymnastics (and temptation) to work through.What I want to focus on this Lent is something I have been turning over in my head for years: minimalism. A life of less. Abouna has always been a minimalist at heart. It's one of the reasons I married him. But I struggle with minimalism. I blame it on the fact that I'm a child immigrant, that much like those girls stuffing cookies in their purses, my hoarding comes from that feeling of being uprooted and replanted, a pebble in my pot that says, "Wal-mart may close down next week, and then where will I buy pens! Must get two packs, just in case."Ask my mother and she will tell you, "You can find just about anything in Laura's room." And while I have a special soft spot for office supplies, it doesn't stop there. Everything for me is full of meaning and possibility. I'm just not good at letting go.Which is why when I read parts of The Ladder of Divine Ascent that urged me to "hold all things with an open hand," I felt particularly convicted. That was years ago, in college, and since then, a marriage, two kids and several homes later, I'm overwhelmed once again with stuff.This Lent, I am adding to my fasting an urge to declutter. I read once that we only need 20% of what we have (#firstworldproblem). I am totally certain this is true for me. Each week, I'll tackle one space and get back on track to less stuff, and share the lessons learned with you.Who knows? Maybe you too will be inspired to "hold all things with an open hand," and we can all release ourselves from the materialism of this world. If we can become detached from earthly things and cling instead to the heavenly, perhaps our final Big Move, to the heavens and its culture of praise and thanksgiving, will be easier.

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