Using Facebook as a Force for Good this Lent, Part 1: Almsgiving

Intro:

The purpose of putting our smartphones on grayscale for Lent is to choose a form of Lenten penance that requires sacrifice while also allowing us to regain an element of thoughtfulness and recollection in our use of these devices, which can distract us from purposeful Christian lives. However, while this Lenten resolution is a good first step, it may not "solve" all our usage struggles.

Perhaps that is why so many people, instead of grayscale, choose other specific resolutions, such as giving up online shopping or social media. At times, we may feel that it the struggles come with impulse control in the little bits of time we have free. We look for distractions on our phone, and find them easily, but we are left feeling that online window-shopping or mindless social media scrolling was not the best use of our time. It lacked a sense of purpose and increased our sense of a lack of impulse control or meaning in our usage.

The question for today is how we might approach Facebook during Lent, using it as a force for good, rather than mindless, time-filling, quasi-entertainment. We consider this question with the traditional Lenten penances in mind: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving and offer concrete suggestions for using Facebook well this Lent, rather than simply giving it up.

Almsgiving:

Fundamentally, almsgiving is about giving money directly to the poorest in need of basic resources. During Lent especially, we see this giving as made possible by our own sacrifices of little comforts that we can give up for a time in order to focus on others. Facebook is currently used for various fundraisers, providing us with opportunities to donate money. However, we can find many other important opportunities simply by paying attention to our friends' situations and needs.

The idea of almsgiving can be extended to include the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and each day, if we are attentive and reflective as we look through the posts of our friends and acquaintances, we will see openings to perform these works. Just recently, members of my family (including myself) had flu, and my husband posted about it on Facebook. I was moved by a number of friends who reached out to me to offer picking up groceries, dropping off Tylenol, and helping with rides for my children. And I was grateful to the friend who dropped off a meal, groceries, and Tylenol for our family.

Each day, as we scroll through Facebook, we will find people mourning the loss of a loved one, struggling to overcome illness, frustrated by logistics of family life, adjusting to a new baby, or going through some other hard times. Rather than casually passing by these posts, we can use them as a way to practice works of mercy during this season of Lent. To be more concrete, I suggest choosing at least one per week to address off Facebook, in real life, as we might say. Such actions would include sending a real, physical sympathy card or buying flowers for someone who has lost a family member, dropping off food for a sick family or family with a new baby, offering a ride to basketball practice for someone struggling with logistics, or sending some cash to someone who seems to be struggling financially.

There may be times, due to our own family circumstances, where we feel limited in our capabilities to reach out in charitable acts. While mailing a thoughtful card may be a possibility, making a meal or offering to watch someone's children may be untenable. However, during those times (including Lent) where we find such obstacles to physical works of mercy, we can still use Facebook as a force for good by offering encouraging words and making affirming, positive comments that express our concern and support for our friends with current challenges.

Because of Facebook, we often know events, including difficulties, that we might not otherwise hear about it. This Lent is a great time to put into practice the idea of almsgiving, using these posts as openings to reach out, inconveniencing ourselves to assist those in need and support those who could benefit. When we make such a choice in our use of Facebook, we can take it beyond mindless distraction to purposeful penance, using it as a force for good this Lent.

Why You Should Consider Putting Your Phone on Grayscale This Lent

In the Lent of 2018, I decided to do something a bit unconventional as a Lenten resolution. I put my iPhone on grayscale. Now I'm back for another round of going gray for Lent. Let me share with you some reasons why you might consider putting your phone on grayscale this Lent.

You love your phone.

Your phone is great. It helps you stay in touch with family and friends, both near and far away. It is amazing to be able to take a cute picture of your toddler, proud of his latest mess, and send it to your mom in Iowa. It is so convenient to order a new pair of sneakers online for your kid and have them arrive within two days. It is a nice break to check social media and post messages to your friends who are celebrating birthdays that day. It is awesome to set a timer so you can remember to change your load of laundry right when the washer ends. It's so nice to be able to pull up GPS when you get lost on your way to a place you haven't been in awhile. And having access to prayer apps and Scripture on your phone is awesome too.

Your phone is useful, convenient, and yes, entertaining. It is a powerful tool that quickly becomes a part of life. For those of us used to using a smartphone, it may be hard to imagine ever going back to life without one. But the fact that you love your phone is a reason to put it on grayscale for Lent. The purpose of Lent is not to give up sins, as those you should be trying to give up all the time anyway. Lent is a time to give up something that we can recognize as good. Giving up color on your phone does not deprive you of the usefulness or convenience of the device. You can still call, text, check social media, set timers, use maps, and so on.

And yet, the entertainment factor is seriously decreased when your screen is only in shades of gray. It suddenly lacks the pull it has when there are bright colors, including those obnoxious red notifications! So, if you love your phone, but aren't able to give it up altogether for Lent, you may want to put it on grayscale. You'll love it less.

You hate your phone.

Sometimes, you may feel like a slave to your phone. You say you're not going to use it so much or let it control you. You know that ultimately you are in control, and this is just a tool. And then there's a ding and a bright red circle, and you've pulled it out again, just to make sure you aren't missing anything important. And you wonder if you really are in control of this device, or if you are its slave.

There may be times that you recognize you aren't exercising as much self-control as you'd like with your use of your phone. You can grow to dislike how tied you feel to it, knowing that you have to be available in case the school nurse calls (again) to say that one of your kids just vomited on her desk during math.

You may plan to spend your time in a certain way, and it may include important tasks that you can complete on your phone, such as scheduling appointments online. But before you know it, you've not only scheduled the appointment, you've also checked the weather, checked your email, responded to your husband's text, and wait a minute...did you schedule the appointment or not? Distractions are inherent with smartphones, inhibiting our impulse control by drawing our attention elsewhere.

If you've ever bemoaned the necessity or practicality of your smartphone, you may want to put it on grayscale for Lent. It shows a certain detachment or disdain for your phone. You may not be able to get rid of it, but you can put it in its proper place. It's just a phone, a plain, boring phone. So there, take that, phone.

You love God.

You love God, and you want to be more aware of his presence throughout the 40 days of Lent. You want to be more conscious of this season of penance, with constant reminders of preparing for that great feast of Easter. You want to join with Jesus in the desert and focus on what really matters in life. You want to be more attentive to the time that has been given you by God, so you can accomplish all that he is asking of you. You want to spend more time in purposeful prayer during this liturgical season, so that you can be open to the Holy Spirit, ready to receive the graces that come with mortification. You want to recognize that phones, and all those useful apps, belong to the world of the temporary, rather than the eternal world. For your love of God, you are willing to decrease the ease and enjoyment of your phone.

You can make it 40 days.

If any of the above is true for you, you may be feeling convicted and ready to try out grayscale. But what if it's terrible? What if you hate it? What if you find great difficulty in navigating the phone without the visual color clues? What if it doesn't increase your prayer times or decrease distractions? The good news is that Lent is only 40 days. It may be impractical to think of permanently making a switch to grayscale, but it ought to be possible to do it for the relatively short span of 40 days.

Grayscale is not a fix-all for mindless phone use, so some people find it helpful to make related resolutions, such as giving up social media or online shopping, too, or being more attentive and purposeful to designated times of prayer.

When Easter finally arrives, if you decide to keep your phone on color once again, it definitely feels celebratory! It's like a major party happening in your hands, an alleluia ringing out Jesus' resurrection. Having a grayscale phone for 40 days may not have been all you were hoping, or it may have been more than you were hoping, but either way, you will notice a difference at the end of Lent!

Outside the Walls Radio Interview

It was a pleasure to speak with Timothy Putnam about the project Go Gray for Lent. The interview can be accessed at this link:
Outside the Walls with Timothy Putnam

Yes and No of Going Gray for Lent

"Sometimes, I have felt it was like an eye looking at me. and I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don't you know; or wondering if it's safe, and pulling it out to make sure. I tried locking it up, but I found I couldn't rest without it in my pocket. I don't know why. And I don't seem able to make up my mind."

These are Bilbo Baggins' words in Chapter 1 of The Fellowship of the Ring, as he speaks to the wizard Gandalf about his ring. A smartphone, of course, is not a magic ring, and yet, we may echo Bilbo's words to some extent here. Many smartphone users are always wanting to take out their phone and perhaps "disappear" from whatever or whoever surrounds them: disappearing from the household chores, the work responsibilities, or the strangers in the waiting room. Like a magic ring, a smartphone can be very useful.

Unnecessary checking on phones is not altogether different than Bilbo's wondering if the ring is safe, and pulling it out to make sure.

Sometimes, we recognize the pull that the device has on us, so we put it away from us, only to realize we can't rest without it in our pocket. What if we miss out on something important while it is tucked away in a drawer?

And, like Bilbo wanting to let go of the ring but not making up his mind on it, we often are indecisive  and inconsistent about how, where, when, and why we want to make use of our phones. Even with good intention and practical resolutions, we may find ourselves reaching to our pockets absent-mindedly, like Bilbo with the ring. And we may find ourselves checking our email when we set out to make a phone call!

Going grayscale for Lent is one way of addressing the ambivalence we feel about the pull of the screen in our pocket. It's a resolution that requires changing a setting and nothing more: no active monitoring or maintenance.

Lenten resolutions are penances, and penances always indicate both a "yes" and "no." Going grayscale for Lent is a way of saying no. Grayscale is a no to the brightness and attraction of the screen. It's a way of trying to address the pull of the screen in our pocket. Ultimately, like all penances should be, going grayscale is a way of saying no to ourselves.

It's a way to acknowledge bad habits that have slowly crept into our lives, and to say no to them. It tames an impulse, and reminds that we use the phone as a tool, rather than letting the phone use us, as a magic ring might, exercising control over thought and action. Like a magic ring, our phones were designed to catch our attention, to draw our usage, and to ensnare our commitment. Technology developers seek out and depend upon our desires and uses. Phones and apps were thoughtfully and intentionally designed, not simply to be useful tools, but to be indispensable tools: tools that we may feel we cannot live without. Going grayscale is a way of saying no to this illusion. It aims at detachment, a no to this object that so easily attaches us.

The Lenten resolution of going grayscale is an attempt at saying yes to what really matters. God is our ultimate reality, our beginning and end. This penance helps us to say yes to recollection, conscious choice, and practicing the presence of God. The gray screen seems dull and boring, throwing into relief the vividness of our surroundings, the gift of this life in this world, and the unbelievable beauty of the world to come. The boring screen reminds us to say yes to the people near us, who - whether strangers on an airplane or our own family members - are children of God, with souls! The gray screen is a way of saying yes to ourselves as God's beloved children, capable of using our free will to grow in virtue and cooperate with the abundance of grace given to us by God.

The willingness to go grayscale for Lent shows that we recognize the pull in our pockets and have the courage to say no to that attachment. This resolution also shows that we say yes to what really matters, to serving God in the best way we can.

Social Penance, Social Media

The practice of having a Lenten resolution is still very much alive in our American Catholic culture. Given that many penitential practices in the U.S. have fallen by the wayside, Lenten resolutions are all the more commendable. Each year brings another time of discernment for the faithful who want to make a sacrifice to mark the preparatory and penitential season of Lent. The traditional triad of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving can be conceived of broadly enough to allow for everything from giving up soda or chocolate to keeping a gratitude journal to volunteering at the parish food pantry.

Even putting a smartphone on grayscale can fit with this traditional Lenten triad!

The diversity and multitude of Lenten penances in contemporary American culture can be misleading, however. It can give the appearance that Lent is only, or primarily a "me and Jesus" type of thing. Lent can be mistaken as an individualistic pursuit of proving one's willpower to oneself. That is far from the meaning of Lent.

Prior to the Lent of 1967, Catholics shared a common penance for the season of Lent. That penance involved daily fasting, as is now obligatory only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. It also allowed for meat only once a day, excepting Friday, which was a day of complete abstinence throughout the year. This may seem a difficult penance, but the ordinary faithful were able to do it, in part because they did it together. Because daily fasting was required, it was a common experience with social expectations and practices in place that supported it.

Partly because it was obligatory, over the years this Lenten fast became routine for many Catholics, who fasted out of habit but perhaps were lacking in the spiritual meaning behind Lenten fasting. For this reason, the bishops in the U.S. decided it might be better to let individuals exclusively make their own Lenten resolutions that would be more meaningful.

Thus the social nature of Lenten penance was largely lost, to be replaced by the faithful discerning their own individual resolutions. This gave rise to the situation of also having to discern whether to conceal these resolutions from friends and family or share them. Hiding them might seem to prevent pridefulness, but it could actually add to it. Sharing them might bring the support of others, but a comparison might make one person or another feel their resolution was inadequate. Not telling others the resolution would prevent embarrassment if the person failed, but telling others might help keep the person more accountable. Suddenly the internal struggle seemed to convey that Lent is an individual, competitive pursuit, rather than a team sport.

If Lent had, in the past, tended too much toward an unthinking, routine, social penance, Lent now tends too much toward this overthinking, individual, competitive penance. In fact, the social nature of penance is crucial for the Catholic Church. Why?

1. Biblical reasons. When Jonah approached Nineveh, he was sent to a people. So also, throughout the Old Testament, we see the Hebrew people performing penitential acts together, as a people.

2. Traditional reasons. Throughout Christian history, the faithful have partaken of penance as a group, at times simply out of custom, and at other times due to official regulations, i.e. canon law.

3. Effectiveness. Most people have experienced the ability to stick with something difficult because they are surrounded with others doing likewise. Sharing a penance with others who are doing the same sacrifice can be both inspirational and helpful in surmounting difficulties and maintaining the Lenten resolution.

4. Meaningfulness. Social penance gives people the opportunity to be supportive of others. Although each person may have a unique experience of the penance, he or she does not feel it as a solitary pursuit. We know we are ecclesiologically linked in the mystical body of Christ.

5. Individual resolutions. There is nothing inherently wrong with individual resolutions. In fact, when people are part of a penitential culture, knowing that penance is something shared, as a team sport, they are better able also to commit to individual penances as well.

6. Loving Christ and his cross. The mystery of Christ's love for us to the point of his death on the cross inspires in us a response of love for Christ and for that cross, which we must take up daily as individuals, but which we also take up together, as the body of Christ.

Smartphones are perhaps at once the epitome of individual and social. They are personal devices, often carried around on the person, with unique settings and apps tailored to the individual. But they are inherently intended to be social in nature, connecting us to each other through phone calls, messages, and social media.

It is fitting, then, that going grayscale for Lent is something best done together. Its impact on the individual may be remarkable or not, but the shared experience of going grayscale has the potential to link the faithful to the biblical and traditional social penances, to help people to stick to the penance, finding it to be meaningful while also encouraging other individual penances and to grow in love of Christ and the cross.

Grayscale and the Traditional Lenten Triad of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving

Putting your phone on grayscale for Lent may seem like quite an unusual Lenten resolution. In fact, if we look back over 2,000 years of Christianity, I think we can be pretty certain that this particular Lenten resolution was not ever a popular voluntary Lenten penance. So we might ask ourselves why go grayscale, especially when it is not a traditional Lenten practice?

First of all, what are the traditional triad of Lenten penances?

Prayer- spending extra time in prayer or increased intensity in prayer, e.g. attending daily Mass during Lent, saying a Rosary daily, dedicating extra time for mental prayer, reading the Gospels using  lectio divino, keeping a gratitude (to God) journal, etc.

Fasting- giving up those foods that we enjoy. Before the Lent of 1967, all Catholics practiced daily Lenten fasting with partial abstinence from meat, excepting Fridays, which were days of complete abstinence from meat. Voluntary fasting since 1967 has come to include many things, such as fasting from chocolate, snacks, meat, dairy, soda, alcohol, coffee, etc.

Almsgiving- dedicating additional funds toward the poor. Especially given a more simple Lenten menu, there should be extra money available to give to those in need. Almsgiving can include direct giving to the poor and beggars, as well as charitable giving to organizations dedicated to helping the poor. It can also include the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, such as visiting the imprisoned and clothing the naked.

Now, where might going grayscale on our phones fit into this schema? The answer is...everywhere! In his book, The Strangest Way, Bishop Robert Barron borrows the Buddhist idea of "monkey mind," to describe what sometimes happens when we begin to pray, placing ourselves in the presence of God. Even with the best of intentions and desires, our mind eagerly jumps from topic to topic, distracting us from the presence of God.

Smartphone usage is a sort of a training in monkey mind, an easy way of exacerbating a tendency that we already have. Jumping from app to app, from bright red circle notification to the next, scrolling quickly through a social media feed, or skimming news headlines and emails. There are a multitude of ways we use our phones - often to good purpose as an amazing tool - and yet, it feeds a sort of monkey mind, where conscious choice can be minimized as we follow the whims engineered by app designers who study how to distract us and employ those means to win our attention.

There are wonderful prayer apps that we can download to our phone...but, lovely and useful as they are, they nonetheless appear as one app among many. Even with dedication to a particular prayer practice, we can easily fall into a desire to get that breviary done so we can go back to FaceBook. Having a smartphone does not preclude having a good prayer life, but we must admit that facilitating and encouraging monkey mind through training ourselves with these screens can detract from and diminish the quality and quantity of our time in prayer. Going grayscale has been evaluated as increasing conscious choice, meaning we are ruled once again by our reason and not the drunken monkeys jumping around in our head. Those who advocate a grayscale phone setting claim that it also diminishes overall usage on the phone, which means the minutes available for prayer time increase.

Fasting from certain foods during Lent is also a way of increasing consciousness, of thinking more carefully about what we are consuming. It can help us to live more simply and be aware and appreciative of our resources. The bright colors of the screen are highly consumable, albeit not by our mouths and stomachs. Many of us have had that experience of having our attention drawn to the bright red notifications, feeling like we must click in order to get it erased. Push notifications draw our attention to breaking news, and we feel a desire to consume this news immediately. Fasting from food is a way of slowing us down, and so also is fasting from color. Our phones become less attractive and less consumable.

Almsgiving is a practice that ultimately has its root in seeing God in others, acknowledging the truth that when we give to others, we are giving to God and showing him our love. Many of us have had the experience of feeling ignored by others who are looking at their phones. Many of us have also had the experience of knowing that someone near us feels ignored because WE are looking at our phones! The attractiveness of entertainment or communication with others that we love can easily distract us from the people that surround us. It can prevent us from recognizing God in others and from identifying their needs. We can miss out on opportunities for the corporal and spiritual works of mercy because we are buried in what is happening on our screens. If going grayscale, combined with an intentional desire to be more present to those around us, can help us to decrease our overall phone usage, we can be more present to others, recognizing God's presence in them.

So, in short, while going grayscale on a phone is very new as a specific Lenten practice, it is nonetheless in continuity with the tradition of Lenten penances. The aim of the U.S. bishops in making Lenten penances voluntary in 1967 was precisely so that the faithful could identify penances that would be meaningful and appropriate to the current situation. Going grayscale is a great example of a penance that addresses the needs of our times.

Going Grayscale for Lent

What is "Going Grayscale"?

Smartphones have a display setting that limits the colors of the screen to shades of gray. Switching a screen to grayscale reduces the attraction of looking at the screen, thus reducing overall phone usage and increasing conscious choice, rather than simply responding to bright colors designed intentionally to attract attention and cause distraction. For more on the results of going grayscale, see this piece by Nellie Bowles, entitled, "Is the Answer to Phone Addiction a Worse Phone?" You may also be interested in a TED talk by tech ethicist Tristan Harrison on "Time Well Spent."

The Phone Temptation

A mere two years ago, I finally got a smartphone, with the hopes of finally being able easily to read the texts from my daughter's soccer coach. When I told my brother, he said, "You'll be a slave to your phone in about a month." I laughed. I didn't think I'd be like those people who always have their phones out. But before long, his words started to become more and more true. Like many people, I started using my phone for everything from prayer to driving directions to email to FaceBook to weather checks to recipes to, well, you get the point.

Smartphones are dead useful, no doubt. And yet, lately there has been a new round of concerns about the effects they have on us individually and on our society as a whole. Jean Twenge, writing for The Atlantic, asked "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?" Another piece noted, "Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, Even if It's Just Sitting There," citing a study indicating that even a silent, powered off phone can be distracting. Many of us can't imagine going back to not having this useful tool. But on the other hand, we acknowledge it would be great if we had more control over the phone than it has over us.

Lent: 40 Days of Gray

Having recognized the particular temptations to distraction represented by their phones, Lent often finds my friends trying to find a way to limit their time. Some give up FaceBook for Lent. Others try to give up games on their phones. Some try to make a point of doing something positive or religious on their phone. The creativity of Lenten resolutions around phone usage is amazing, and even inspiring. It shows that we can recognize the way we feel like slaves to our phones. Even more so, it shows our desire for exercising our free will in a conscious and recollected way, particularly during Lent.

The traditional penitential practices of Lent are fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Going grayscale, while not a dietary fasting, nonetheless is a sort of fast, from the flashy and inviting colors of the screens we carry around with us. Grayscale is a choice to abstain from the color we would ordinarily see. Grayscale users find their overall screen time decreases, and this means there should be more time available for intentional prayer.

Together is Better

For the last fifty years, Lenten resolutions have largely been individualistic. But before 1966, all American Catholics shared the same Lenten fasting practices, including daily fasting (one meal, two snacks not totaling a full meal) during the 40 days of Lent. One reason these vigorous practices were possible was that the faithful did them together. Lenten penances were never meant to be a contest of creativity or difficulty; instead they are an opportunity to support one another.

This blog is connected to a FaceBook group for people who are committed to going grayscale for Lent. While members are encouraged also to take up other Lenten resolutions, the Go Gray for Lent group is meant as a way to recognize a shared struggle. Those who are not on FaceBook (or have given it up for Lent!) can follow this blog and let others know about the shared penance by referring others to this post.