Saturday 7 March 2009

Lent and the demise of a pointless blog

Hmm. I was writing another blog about my progress in Lent. And it was pointless.
So here's the introduction:

I am not a religious person but I am by birth (and baptism) a Christian. I celebrate Christmas and Easter. I ate pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. I thought I should think about what it's all about:

chocolate
pancakes
eggs
more chocolate

I'm fairly sure of the Easter story. But the Lent bit is something I don't really know about.

I have learned:

It represents the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by Satan. Christians use Lent as a time for prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self denial. Pancake Tuesday is a using up of all the fats and flour before the fasting begins. So called Shrove Tuesday because one is meant to shrive and achieve absolution before Lent begins.

It lasts more than 40 days because it doesn't include Sundays. Sundays during Lent are meant to be minor celebrations of Easter. As Wiki puts it "Jesus' victory over sin and death". Not entirely sure I go with the "victory" concept, but never mind. We celebrate something. That's assuming he was real and anything at all to do with God. If He exists. Whatever.

Unsure what Jesus did on Sundays. Possibly did 40 days straight, but we always needed Sundays off. Unsure also as to whether Sundays are properly exempt and you don't have to fulfil any of the other stuff, or if you just slightly act Easter-y.
Maybe have a Creme Egg on Sundays in Lent?

Right. So. I'm not religious. I said that. But neither are the other people around me who give up things for Lent. I never do. I usually give up something I don't do anyway. It was going to be solvent abuse this year... but I decided to have a think. It's being a parent, it makes you THINK. I never used to think, I merely opined. Now I do this thinking lark. Troublesome.

It's not about having-a-reason-to-diet. It's about grieving. And self atonement. And I'm a bit of the opinion that even though I don't believe in it all, if I'm going to eat chocolate on Easter Sunday, I should really pay attention to the other stuff. And so have answers to the perpetual "why?"

So, for Lent this year, I intended to record each day (except Sunday when I'd ponder other things) what I had done in the way of prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self denial.

However, I have found that I have little to record each day. So, a bit pointless and so bye bye to that.

What I learned:
Self denial: I'm not so good at self denial. Right now I need to go on a health kick so as not to feel cack all the time. So that's little to do with self atonement and a lot to do with survival.
Prayer: not going to happen.
Almsgiving: I give little to charity, I certainly don't do it every day.
Penitence: I would hope I usually make amends for what I have done wrong. I don't think I necessarily want to write it down. Maybe I should. I'm not going to.

Maybe it would be nice to record a daily moment of niceness. Hmm.

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