Lenten thinking...

What did you give up for Lent? Anything?

This was a common question back in my youth – the 50’s and 60’s, don’t you know? But in our home we didn’t give up anything for Lent. Actually we didn’t understand Lent. We kind of knew what it is/was, but being Protestants we didn’t have a ritual or routine practice to follow regarding Lent. We knew about Good Friday. Easter. Certainly Christmas. The other Christian calendar highlights were really a mystery to us.

We had a lot of Catholic friends. They did the Ash Wednesday thing. Lent, too. Oh, and Good Friday and Easter. They were really busy. First Communion, any communion, confession, Hail Mary’s, Our Fathers. We Protestants didn’t really get much of that, but we knew and respected our friends doing things differently than us.

Then there were our Jewish friends. Not a lot in California when we were little, but then we weren’t aware of such things then so maybe lots of Jews were around us. We just didn’t pay attention. By the time we lived in New England (western Massachusetts) we became aware of Catholics and Jews.

Coming of age – whether puberty or social consciousness – we began to be more aware of people and happenings around us. New to us as a human being maturing ever so slowly, but not the world. No, the world had been experiencing this for a very long time. Very long time!

Moving on to New York and then to Illinois (for college) I did a lot of maturing. Living with classmates from different backgrounds, ethnicities, mindsets and religious practices, to say nothing of diverse cultures, I matured quickly.

Later in career building phase, marriage and parenthood, maturity dashed headlong into me. I found myself fighting for a toe hold: who was I? What did I believe? What was central to my values and belief systems? What would I die for to keep? And what would I die for to let someone else have the right to keep his beliefs?

Maturing pulls us into these vortexes – thoughts spinning quickly – jumping to new thoughts and still more vortexes (vortices?). Not to be confused with chaos, but surely demanding. A lot to think about. A lot to deal with. A lot to respect. Yet I had to come to a conclusion with this material so I could feel good about it – and myself. This is my identify, after all. Not some one else’s.

Older. Passage of years. Still thinking. More philosophical. More theological. Politics, too. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

What does Lent mean to me now?

It is a time to reflect on big issues. The world. The globe. What matters to me. What matters to my nation. What matters to my family. What are the core building blocks of our existence on this planet. That’s the sort of thing I’m thinking about.

I think Lent is a time to think about what has been given up for me – for my life – by others. Whether a religious figure – Christ, or Mohammad, or any other religious icon – what have they done for others so the others could be themselves? Didn’t the icons provide a message, one that says we are all in this together? That we owe each other a great deal?

Yes. I think that’s what Lent is about. Whether you are Islam or Jewish or Christian (Catholic or one of a hundred other denominations), the Lenten season is the time of year we are reminded that we are not islands of life. Life is. We are subsidiary to it. Not captain of it. Something else is in charge.

Understand it. Live with it. Humility is good to have. Lent is humility?

March 4, 2013