Lent Done Two Ways
Aaron Fulkerson)
I grew up in an Irish Catholic household, so Lent has always been a part of my life. Even though I’m no longer Catholic, for many, many reasons, I still really associate with the season of Lent. It is a time of reflection, fasting and “giving up” something. Over many years I’ve thought about how (and why) giving up things for Lent is such a good spiritual practice.
How do we give things up though? As many young folks probably have done, my earliest memory of giving up was giving up chocolate. I really enjoyed chocolate as a kid. Who didn’t? And I remember dutifully starting on Ash Wednesday to avoid eating chocolate until the glory of Easter when I could have some chocolate eggs on Holy Saturday, or Easter Monday, or whenever we said Lent was over.
My parents for years had the same Lenten practices: my dad would give up chocolate and my mom would give up potato chips. And as I remember, it went the same way every year. My mom would put the chips away, periodically complain out loud she missed them, but still abstain from eating any chips for mostly the whole length of Lent, maybe with one or two weak moments at most. My dad would start with no chocolate on Wednesday, but by around Friday or Saturday — literally only a couple of days later — be munching on a chocolate bar or small bag of chocolates. We’d all tell him that he gave those up and he’d agree, putting them down for a few days until…he ended up eating a whole chocolate bar or something again. This went on until Easter.
Thinking about it now, as I’m older and not necessarily less wise, this story of how my mom and dad both approached this solemn time of fasting makes me realize there’s more than one way to approach Lent. One way — my mom’s — it what a lot of people think of when they think of giving something up for Lent. Give up something you enjoy but know you can definitely live without for around 40 days. The challenge in this case becomes making it to the end without transgression, but the goal is ultimately achievable. My mom did this yearly, after all.
My dad’s experience made me think of another approach to giving up for Lent. In his case, he gave up something he didn’t know he could do without, spiritually anyway. He gave up something he knew he might not be able to “go without”, and so did what we could. I kind of image that’s like me and coffee. I don’t think I could give up a daily cup of coffee for longer than a few days, and after that I might just double down on a triple espresso drink or something.
In either case, there’s a challenge and there’s an element of going without something you enjoy for spiritual attainment. This is the spirit of Lent, really, in my opinion. Going with less, going without some “Earthly delight” to put it colourfully. But even in deciding how one can achieve this goal there’s an element of challenge: sometimes we fail, sometimes succeed. If we can understand our limitations, we might be able to also learn what we truly love, or what we truly need on some level.
It’s the contemplation and challenge that can help us elevate ourselves on a spiritual level just as much as putting down the Snickers bar for a short time.
