My Lenten Facebook Fast  

When the clock strikes midnight, I'll be saying farewell to Facebook for the next 40 days and 40 nights.

It's the start of the Christian season of Lent. It's a time to give up things that keep you from God. It's a time to focus on spiritual improvement. It's a time to start new, healthy habits - a restart on your New Year's resolution, if you will.

In past years, I've given up everything from swearing to chocolate, almost always unsuccessfully. Typically, I haven't even decided on what I'm going to give up - or on what area of my life I'll be striving to improve - until after the priest has made the sign of the cross in ashes on my forehead (this is a not-so-vague reference to Ash Wednesday, for those of you who aren't practicing Christians). My Lenten sacrifice is more often than not an afterthought, selected more out of rote habit than out of spiritual growth.

This year, though, it's going to be different. More than a month ago, I started thinking about what is truly standing in the way of my relationship not only with God, but with my closest family and friends. The answer was alarmingly obvious: Facebook. This spring marks eight years since I first joined the world's largest social networking site, and I shudder to think just how much time I've wasted (sorry, CAK - my friend who works at Facebook) on the site. Days? Definitely. Weeks? Probably. Months? Most likely. I can undoubtedly say that I've spent more time talking on Facebook with high school classmates whom I haven't seen in person since graduation than I have in conversation with God.

That's a kind of pitiful realization.

My friends are already taking bets on whether I'll be able to maintain my Facebook fast; they are, naturally, casting those votes - where else? - on my Facebook timeline. Technically, the season of Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (which, as it happens, is my 30th birthday), excluding Sundays - however, I'm not going to take advantage of this "Sunday cheat" and will be staying off Facebook completely until Easter Sunday. I know over those six and a half weeks, I'll miss wedding pictures and baby pictures; I'll miss pregnancy and birth announcements; I'll forget birthdays and special events, because I won't have the social network to remind me. I'll be out of touch in so many ways.

But, I hope that I'll become more in touch with the things - the people - that really matter. I'll spend more time talking to my husband instead of sending him reminders to pick up eggs at the store on his Facebook page. I'll spend more time talking to my best friend on the phone than over the web (she's giving up Facebook too - great minds do, indeed, think alike). I'll be able to focus on my father's upcoming surgery without thinking about posting status updates about him online.

There will be more time to play with my children.

There will be more time to finally shave my legs.

But, most importantly, there will be more time to talk to God and really open up to him.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I chose the six weeks leading up to my 30th birthday to do this. This is more than a fast - it's a cleanse, a readjustment of my priorities looking ahead to the next fabulous decade in my life.

After all, Jesus spent 40 days wandering in the desert, being tempted by Satan himself, only to die for us on the cross. The least I can do is give up Facebook.