Say What?

Naively, I stood in front of a group of church members and asked them to practice the #withinonemile Lenten challenge with me. This was one of those times that I wish I had a Candid Camera crew at my disposal. You would've thought I'd asked them to stop drinking coffee or something!  These folks looked at me as if I was crazy.

You want us to do what?  

The church where I serve is smack dab in the middle of the affluent suburbs of Charlotte.  If you know anything about city planning, you know that the suburbs were not planned such that one could walk to the grocery store or thrift store.  In the suburbs, things are spread out.  If a church member agrees to a one mile radius of the church building, they will not be able to shop at a grocery store for 40 days.  eek!  

Of course, the #withinonemile challenge has all sorts of clauses attached:

• If you need to extend your radius, do so.  Reflect on and record your experience.
• Be mindful, but don't torture yourself.

At the sight of those unwelcoming faces, I thought for sure that not one congregant would even pause to consider the challenge.  That's why I was thrilled when a church family joined us for lunch and the topic of conversation that they brought up was, "So, I want to try this challenge, but the grocery store isn't within a mile of my house.  Unless you want me to make all grocery purchases from the gas station, which would cost an arm and a leg, I'm going to need an extension."  YAY!  Does this mean that someone else is joining me- a suburbanite, no less- in this crazy practice?  I sure hope so.

I should probably mention that I have already discovered that I too will need an extension on some things:

• Pre-paid classes:  Unfortunately, my yoga class is 1.25 miles away from the house.  Additionally, I have already paid for a pottery class which is located across town.
• Childcare:  My youngest son is in preschool.  When he's there, I'm either at work or working on creative endeavors.  This, to me, is pretty close to entertainment.  I'm not forsaking preschool for Lent.  He'll be going and I'll be paying.
• Internet:  The internet is not much more than entertainment.  Even this very blog falls into the category of entertainment, for the most part.  There isn't an internet company within one mile of my house.  All of the internet companies in our town are big huge corporations.  I should boycot internet all together, but I'm not going to- at least not yet.

I'm sure, throughout Lent, I'll find some other admissions I must make. 

We'll see as we go.  Thank goodness we're all in this together.