Lent 2023 Day 1 - The Beginning

Although I have been a part of the Christian Church for most of my nearly 49 years on this spinning orb, I have never participate in the tradition of Lent. There are many reasons for that. First, my first 36 years were spent in denominations that did not observe said tradition. To those of you who are not fully up-to-speed on what that means, here is a short explanation. Christian is an umbrella term that covers a LOT of territory. Within that category, there are literally dozens of different denominations and takes on what it means to be a Christian. One of the largest divides comes from the split between Catholics and Protestants. Actually, you could argue that every denomination came from a split with another one over something. Do we use instruments during worship services or not? Is baptism required for salvation or not? Can women serve in vocational ministry or not? As a result you have denominations scattered all over the landscape with different takes on all kinds of doctrine. The concept of Lent was attached more to Catholic / liturgical churches. I grew up in more fundamentalist evangelical Protestant churches. Lots of big words. Christian Missionary Alliance. Southern Baptist. Non-denominational that was really Southern Baptist masquerading as non-denominational. The first time I even attended a church that acknowledged Lent as a reasonable thing to be observed was in 2010 in Orlando. I raised my eyebrows when the church talked about Ash Wednesday and Lent. I ignored it and moved on. That’s not accurate. I didn’t ignore it because now it was part of my consciousness. A lot of times if something had been lumped into the “Catholic”category to me when I was younger, I learned to ignore it. That’s how I was raised. Not saying it is a worthwhile mindset; I learned a lot of things growing up that weren’t worth hanging onto. Like the only people who would eat ketchup on a hot dog and mustard on a hamburger would eat poop and bark at the moon. Or that the work is “orge” and not “ogre.” Or that “jargon” is pronounced “Jar-Gone” like the JarGone2001 robot or something. I didn’t realize that was wrong until I was 40 and teaching a Kaplan GRE class when the kids all laughed every time I said it, thinking I was being weird on purpose. 

So back to the Catholic thing. My mom grew up Roman Catholic and hated it. She rejected all of it. And that meant any traditions or rites or whatever they did - unless she could find justification for them - we didn’t pay attention to them. Not a bad way to approach things, mostly. But there are specifics that don’t have a chapter and verse justification. That leads to awkward moments. Like when your family barely acknowledges Christmas. Has no Christmas tree. Your mom writes a song “Christmas trees aren’t found in the Bible”. That you try to argue with for your entire life. Yeah, so Lent wasn’t a thing. And then it was. I would watch as people I really admired took part in this thing. They would give up things for Lent. 

Oh, I should probably explain Lent - at least as well as I can explain it being inexperienced in it. It is the portion of the calendar between Fat Tuesday and Easter. 40 days. It is supposed to commemorate the 40 days Jesus fasted in the wilderness before beginning his ministry. But that wasn’t right before Easter, so I’m not really clear why this particular window was chosen. So Fat Tuesday - Mardi Gras - is when everyone goes out and does all of this wild stuff because the next day is Ash Wednesday. They then take the next 40 days to prepare themselves for Easter. And they will “give up something for Lent.” I’ve seen people give up chocolate or soda or coffee or caffeine. Ever noticed that every February all the restaurants start selling fish sandwiches? Lent. I may never have done Lent, but I’ve eaten those fish sandwiches. Most of them are pretty good. I don’t remember Bojangles’ one, so I’ll be sure to try that one this year. With the rise of social media, a big one is taking a hiatus from that. It always seemed like a New Year’s Resolution type thing to me - viewing it from the outside. (Shocker: we didn’t do New Year’s resolutions either.) I never was clear on if you were supposed to give up something important to you - or give up something you saw as a weakness. Like am I giving up cake because I LOVE cake? Or am I giving it up because I SHOULDN’T love cake so much? It is supposed to be a fast, which is giving up something that matters. It isn’t like I can say, “I’m not going to eat eggs for 40 days,” when I don’t eat eggs because I’m allergic to them. But there is often an addition of a spiritual discipline - like a devotional or daily prayer time or something like that. 

Ever since we moved back to Columbia, we had not been in church. Part of it was the Covid attacked less than a year after we came back. A lot of it was due to a necessary distance we forced to deal with some spiritual abuse and trauma. We actually had some friends invite us to their church this Fall. We went and fell in love with it. The staff is great. The church is loving and kind. They are trying to show Jesus’ love to the city. And they let me serve - encourage me to be me. Like holding babies on Sunday mornings. Well this church observes Lent - more so than any place we have been. And I really trust this staff and want to know why they do that. So I’ve looked into it. I’m actually going to go to a Men’s Bible study at buttcrack early on Wednesday mornings about forgiveness - which is the theme of Lent here. 

So, giving up something for Lent. I like the idea of giving up something that is a negative - but does that mean I’ll go back and do it again after the 40 days? Is this just a kickstarter program of sorts? I don’t really want to give up something I like because, frankly, I don’t have a whole lot of things I do. “Don’t buy legos.” Haha. I rarely buy Legos. That’s what happens when you own so many. I’ve already pruned most of my food and drink pitfalls. I’d be glad to give up rheumatoid arthritis for it. But that isn’t going to happen. Then something hit me. What about if I give up fear for Lent. 

Allow me to explain. I love to write. It is one of my favorite things to do. I’ve written a lot over the years. I’ve written weekly articles for the local paper. Hundreds of church bulletin articles. Dozens of monthly articles. Articles on national websites. I have written two children’s books. Big Bible studies used all over America. A goofy blog. And a lot of other stuff that you’ve never seen. The single biggest roadblock to my writing is my fear. Anyone who does anything creative recognizes the fear that comes with putting themselves out there. It is taking something of myself and crafting it and putting it out for public consumption, hoping others will like it. And then someone comes along and says “that isn’t that impressive” or “anyone can write” or “that isn’t a real book because it wasn’t published by a real publisher” or “a study isn’t a book”.  Now, I can intellectually recognize that there are reasons behind those comments: jealousy, general dickishness, the love of being a troll. But that doesn’t make reading the comments any easier. And I can see when my children are being damaged by these comments - and try to point out to them the lack of validity in them. When I don’t do that for myself. My son is a brilliant cartoonist. He had a huge storyline he had created regarding one of his favorite fandoms. There were some trolls who did not like the way he paired the characters. Keep in mind, it wasn't his drawing quality, writing quality, worth as a human. It was that they didn’t like the storyline because they wanted a different one. They were so vicious that he quit drawing for over a year. THAT is what is terrifying to me. It isn’t that I worry people will say I suck as a writer. I have a lot of proof that they are wrong. It is the JUDGMENT - not the criticism. Someone who meant something to me, someone who has a bigger following than me, someone who is meaner than me. That they will obliterate me because they don’t agree with me.  I’m one of those people who cannot escape words. I can still remember so so so many mean things that were said to me over the years. They come soaring back at the worst moments and still have a devastating impact. And with the line between content creator and consumer completely wiped away, people have unfettered rein to be as mean as they want. And they will. And it isn’t just “neckbeards in their mom’s basement” doing it. This is just how our society is now. If someone says something you disagree with, you attack them relentlessly. As weird as it sounds, there are some people reading this right now who are angry at me for something I said or how I said it. I’m not telling anyone else what to do. I’m not giving a sermon. I’m just a dork talking about some thoughts he has about something he might do. That doesn’t matter. It reminds me of the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness - about the Tsavo man-eating lions from 1898. Terrifying movie. These lions just started hunting people. They didn’t need to. They didn’t eat them. They just killed them for sport. I saw those lions at the Field Museum in Chicago this summer. They still are creepy as hell. But that is how people are now. It isn’t about stamping out false doctrine or making sure the truth is out there. It is just about destroying someone who doesn’t look at things the same way as you do. 

This is terrifying to me. I am going to try to follow through and write/post something every day for 40 days. It isn’t all going to be amazing or even intelligent. If you dig back through my old blog posts, you’ll find some really stupid things that I wrote. On second thought, maybe don’t do that. Honestly, I don’t care if you read this or not. Being completely truthful, I hope some of you don’t, because I don’t trust you. It’s similar to what we tell our kids with Kaplan: it doesn’t matter that you get THIS problem right in class. It is if you can get one like it right on test day. It doesn’t matter what I write during this time; it is what I’m able to do afterwards. Cause I know that I have some important things to say that could make a big difference in somebody’s life. I just need to get out of my own way first.