{"id":4231,"date":"2009-01-30T05:58:14","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T05:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html"},"modified":"2009-01-30T05:58:14","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T05:58:14","slug":"preparing-for-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fasting.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/120\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt;float: left\" height=\"245\" width=\"162\" \/><\/span>As with Advent and even our Holy Week, ideas for a major seasonal shift like Lent can be difficult to come by. This year I want to focus on something simple. I&#8217;m going to focus on fasting one day each week. (By the way, I&#8217;m not convinced giving up chocolate or TV is a &#8220;fast.&#8221; Those sorts of denials are better called &#8220;abstinences.&#8221; Fasting is a response to something and entails giving up food or even all food and water for a designated period. It does not focus on getting something in return.)<\/p>\n<p>Each week I want to focus on fasting as a response to sin &#8212; original sin and its effects &#8212; as I anticipate Good Friday and the glory of Easter. <\/p>\n<p>And I invite you to prepare for Lent and to participate in Lent (as preparation for Holy Week) by taking a look at <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0849901081?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0849901081\">Fasting: The Ancient Practices<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0849901081\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: medium none  ! important;margin: 0px ! important\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As with Advent and even our Holy Week, ideas for a major seasonal shift like Lent can be difficult to come by. This year I want to focus on something simple. I&#8217;m going to focus on fasting one day each week. (By the way, I&#8217;m not convinced giving up chocolate or TV is a &#8220;fast.&#8221;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fasting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Preparing for Lent - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preparing for Lent - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As with Advent and even our Holy Week, ideas for a major seasonal shift like Lent can be difficult to come by. This year I want to focus on something simple. I&#8217;m going to focus on fasting one day each week. (By the way, I&#8217;m not convinced giving up chocolate or TV is a &#8220;fast.&#8221;&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-30T05:58:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Preparing for Lent - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Preparing for Lent - Jesus Creed","og_description":"As with Advent and even our Holy Week, ideas for a major seasonal shift like Lent can be difficult to come by. This year I want to focus on something simple. I&#8217;m going to focus on fasting one day each week. (By the way, I&#8217;m not convinced giving up chocolate or TV is a &#8220;fast.&#8221;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-01-30T05:58:14+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html","name":"Preparing for Lent - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg","datePublished":"2009-01-30T05:58:14+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-30T05:58:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Fasting.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/01\/preparing-for-lent.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Preparing for Lent"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}