I have been having a fun time this Lent giving things up. I
know, that already sounds wrong; there is nothing about Lent that is supposed
to be fun. It is supposed to be a journey of difficulty, pain, sorrow, and deep
introspection. So I have already broken a rule by having fun. I guess I’ll have
to go and confess this to God and pray for some kind of forgiveness. Good thing
I’m not Catholic – who know what kind of absolution a priest can offer for
that. The penance alone may be more that I can handle.
For those who know me and follow me on Facebook they already
know what I have been doing. Each day of Lent I have been giving something up,
but not what you think. I have been giving up those things that annoy me, those
things that I might want to give up, or those things that are simply absurd. It
is the best Lent ever! Here is the list of things I have given up for the first
12 days of Lent (that should be a song). I’m going to start with the day before
(Shrove Tuesday) because it helps Ash Wednesday make sense:
Shrove Tuesday: if you are going to
fornicate today is the day to do it.
Ash Wednesday:
today you can start to atone for all the fornicating you did yesterday. If you
keep fornicating, then keep atoning – you have 40 pleasure-guilt days for this
cycle of spirituality. You’re welcome.
2nd day of
Lent: No Valentines – that will be my sacrifice for the day
3rd day of
Lent: I am giving up paying bills
4th day of
Lent: I am giving up long drives
5th day of
Lent: I am giving up a French recording of the jazz standard Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles Mortes); especially if it is sung by Andrea Bocelli
6th day of
Lent: Prune juice, I’m giving up prune juice.
7th day of
Lent: I am giving up resting. On the 7th day of Lent I shall not
rest.
8th day of
Lent: I am giving up oversleeping. It is a waste of precious time and
induces much guilt.
9th day of
Lent: I am giving up all of the resolutions I have made at one point or
another to change my life. Hail the status quo!
10th day
of Lent: I am giving up folding laundry while watching foreign films. It is
to difficult to read the subtitles and fold at the same time.
11th day
of Lent: for all my musical peeps I am giving up scales, arpeggios,
intonation, and rhythm. I am going to sound soooo good.
12th day
of Lent: I will not listen to 80s synth rock today.
Can you believe that I have done this for twelve days?
Imagine what forty will look like. I did not put on there the Sundays. I
implore people to take Sunday off as we all should (hooray Jesus!).
What I think is happening is what I would like to call a
liturgy of the absurd™.
It has become a part of the popular Christian culture to
approach Lent as a time to give something up like candy, television, or dog
races (I will not race against dogs for 40 days). This loses a sense of what
Lent was originally about. Yet instead of offering an old-man rant about kids
these days and how back in our days we put sandpaper in our shoes so we could
suffer for Lent, I am offering the absurd. Instead of giving up one thing for
forty days I am giving up forty things, one a day, for forty days (excluding
Sundays).
Full disclosure: I am
not actually giving up any of the things I have listed; that would actually be
absurd.
Full disclosure: I
never planned this, it simply “happened”
You may ask me, “What is the point of your antics young
man?” To be honest, I am not sure. There is something about the absurd that
points to a truth that we may not notice when approaching it directly. Yet in
reality I do not know. This is the neat thing about Lenten practices – you
enter into them without fully knowing what you may be doing. You trust that God
is going to lead you somewhere and that will be a different place than where
you started.
Dare I suggest that God has a hand in my Lenten antics?
Maybe.
Dare I suggest that I may grow through such a parody of
liturgy? Maybe.
That is the thing about Lent and other pilgrimages. We take
a chance a follow an idea, practice, or life that seems absurd hoping it will
lead us to something better. Kind of like a bunch of people following someone
who says he is the Son of God, something absurd, and hoping for something
better than what they have now. So I’ll follow this path and see where it
leads.
Maybe for today’s Lent I’ll give up being absurd.
3 comments:
FYI Lutherans love Lent. I preached a sermon In preparation for the season called how to. Experience your best lent ever!
Thanks Nancy - Lent can be a "fun" time for all!
Following Jesus, living what he taught is definitely absurd. Interesting thoughts, Jonathan.
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