Category Archives: Heart on My Sleeve

Traditionally, Fat Tuesday is a Catholic’s last hurrah, but even before that modernization, it was a celebration of the coming of Spring. I’m not Catholic, and Lent always starts to annoy me around noon on Ash Wednesday when everyone is giving up their chocolate and cigarettes for Jesus. Growing up in a Protestant church, we learned that Lent is supposed to be a season of fasting and prayer, a time where we meditate on Jesus’ gift to sinners and to remember the suffering he endured on the cross to atone our sins. Then, of course, the Easter Bunny comes along, hides his colorful eggs, leaves us baskets full of Pez and chocolates, and Jesus rises from the dead. Hallelujah! Wait. What?

The indulgence of Fat Tuesday is upon us once again, and with Lent starting tomorrow, the vices are flowing. Chocolates are melting in mouths, paczkis are selling out in bakeries everywhere, and cigarettes are being puffed faster than you can say lung cancer. (And pizza… we’re having that, too.) It just all feels so silly. Eat, smoke, drink, flash a boob, and get a bead. Then we wake up the next day and pray about it.

I’m not necessarily innocent in this charade either. Believe me. I’m eating a doughnut today, and having pizza, and probably a beer, but today feels more like a great excuse to give dieting the finger for one day and eat a whole bunch of delicious bad crap than a religious celebration of Spring. I’ll throw in a “Yay, Tulips!” for good measure though. Why not?

So what of Wednesday? I’ve decided I want to walk through the desert for 40 days, like Jesus, but with less desert and more walking. I feel like this is supposed to be a personal walk with Him, rather than a Facebook status-a-day complaining about how much I miss whatever it is I’m giving up or committing to do.  I don’t think Jesus ever updated his Twitter account with “OMG, this cross is HEAVY!” and so I think, if I can decide on a 40 day task, that I’ll keep it to myself. I’d like to be closer to Jesus, because it helps me think better, do better, and feel better, not because it makes me look good among friends. (My friends love me whether I participate in Lent or not anyway, so that pressure is null and void.)

I have a challenge though, for my fellow Lent-ers, if you’re giving something up or committing to a 40 day something or another, don’t talk about it, pray about it. In the true spirit of Lent, use your 40 days to walk through the desert alone in prayer with God, rather than bragging or complaining about how much you miss your vice, or how bad your abs hurt, or how tired you are, or how great you’re doing with your shiny new treadmill. Can we please, for one year of Lent, not turn it into a glorification of ourselves and let the glory be with the One who really made a sacrifice? Bear your cross, but do it alone. Jesus didn’t have 1200 Twitter followers or 536 Facebook followers cheering Him on His journey, and neither should we, if our true intention is to draw closer to God.

Am I alone in this thinking? Will you take the challenge?