I sat in front of the dark TV screen and a remote I hadn’t touched in over five weeks and I thought about this fresh and vital side of Easter. The other side of 40 days of fasting. Mostly, I thought about my pre-Lent attitude about fasting, an attitude that sounded something like this:

I’m already a disciplined person – moderate, temperate, restrained. I already spend so much of my life in fasting mode, sacrificing and giving up luxuries. Why should I have to give up any more of the few, small pleasures I afford myself on such a limited basis?

Can anyone say entitlement mentality?

So I was sitting on the couch, staring at the reflection of the sun in our darkened high-def boob tube, thinking about Lent and how surprised I was by this fast, surprised by how it had transformed and freed me from chains I didn’t know needed to be loosed.

You see, my TV-watching wasn’t excessive – at least not in the hours-spent-on-the-couch category. Nonetheless, I had still managed to abuse it, using the very sound of afternoon shows to keep me from feeling lonely as I work from home. The days can be long and, boy, that Ellen sure makes the silence not seem so loud from three-to-four o’clock. And then there’s Biography Channel at four o’clock. And the Game Show Network at five while I prep dinner. Oh, and then why not leave it on the music channel while Jason and I eat dinner. Then back into the living room to numb out in front of Nick at Nite or Food Network.

And there you go: the silence, the loneliness, cured. But something else had begun to die.

It was this dying that I became aware of once I began examining my heart in preparation for Lent. As I considered the number of things it would be good for me to say no to for a little while, it became clear that I had used TV (and so many other safe addictions) to fill a void, a void that I needed if I was ever to explore other deeper, more fulfilling things. I had used it to keep me from better places. Places Ellen and Rachael Ray and Chuck Woolery can never take me.

To good places where I make a phone call to a friend or relative. To contemplative places where I read a favorite chapter from a familiar book. To selfless places where I write a card to someone in need. To solitary places where I go for a walk. To quiet places where I take a nap and feel my baby kicking inside. To essential places where I talk with God. And listen. Listen to His Spirit. Listen to bird songs and rain drops outside my window. Listen to my life.

And in saying no to something that I was misusing (because of so much fear), in Lent I found myself saying yes to so much life and lightness and freedom. Refreshed relationships. Revived mind. Energized body. Reawakened soul.

With Resurrection Day come and gone, I may or may not turn the TV on to catch my 9:00 p.m. episode of Seinfeld every night. I can hardly believe it, but I just don’t need the noise anymore. Then again, even if I don’t need it, I’m thinking a few laughs at George Costanza’s expense are exactly the noise this celebration calls for.

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