A New Season

So it's been a long time, but to insure I actually get to my post here I will not bore everyone with the details of the last 14 months of my life. Instead, I want to share some thoughts about Lent.

For most of us Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday, is probably just that time of the year when we notice 'Ash Wednesday' (maybe) on our calendars, say 'Oh, it's Ash Wednesday,' then go on our way and never think about it again. Some of us may be even more culturally aware of the Lenten season's effects on our society. Mardi Gras, for example, marks those days leading up to Lent; it is a time of celebration, of living, of joy, and even for a pinch of revelry. It's a time for a beleaguered city like New Orleans to take a deep breath, rejoice in the midst of its 1.5 million party-goers, then exhale as it slowly reminds itself that it is alive.

But why the celebration? Why 'Fat Tuesday?' What is Ash Wednesday? Why Lent? What even is Lent? Is it just a time to give up sweets, or soft drinks, or meat, or even food for days on end? For what end do so many people from all walks of life tend to jump on this cultural phenomenon and give something up? These are the questions many of us ask and may or may not try to answer.

To avoid a ridiculously long post I would like to focus strictly on 'Fat Tuesday' or Shrove Tuesday and the Ash Wednesday that follows it. Shrove Tuesday cannot be understood without Ash Wednesday. I know for a lot of us Ash Wednesday seems like just a day where all the Catholics come to school or work with blackened, smeared soot all over their foreheads. But more than just Catholics adopt this practice, and before we dismiss it as silly or unnecessary let's try to understand what leads so many people to be, quite honestly, humiliated on this particular day.

In our culture we do not like to talk about death. Death is foreign, other, and unavoidable. No one person is too young to die. In a society that has committed itself to beating sickness, disease, and maybe even cancer, death still looms on our horizon. And whether in the darkness of our bedrooms or perhaps in the midst of a beautiful day we can see death looming. Some of us have already faced death, perhaps of a person that was closer to us than anyone could ever understand. Maybe in a distant relative. Maybe we've seen a stranger die. And for these people the reminder we receive on Ash Wednesday seems superfluous. "You are dust, and to dust you shall return," the priest says as ash mixed with holy water or oil is placed in the form of a cross on so many foreheads. We are dying.

This moment marks the beginning of Lent which I will explore later, but it is sufficient to say that this reminder thrusts us into desperation. We may even want to panic. "Wait, I'm dying? I'm only in my teens,,,or in my twenties...thirties...forties...etc." How do I fix this? The quick answer is you cannot fix this, as un-American as that feels. But don't despair, Church, the answer is coming. In a little over forty days you'll see hope incarnate. But that is for another time.

As for Shrove Tuesday, those who know this reminder is coming, those who await the Imposition of Ashes and preemptively recognize their own mortality, let these people 'let go' for a while. Let adults play games like children, let class and social and racial divides disappear, let us just forget for a few hours that we are dying. Let us remember why we want to live so during Lent we will despair, because we do not want to die. We do not want to lose all of this. And when we see our plight, the hopelessness of who and what we are, then we may slowly begin to understand why Easter must come.