48/365 Farewell to the flesh

Mardi Gras: Fat Tuesday. Today is Wednesday. Carnivale: Carni, meaning meat or flesh, and vale, meaning goodbye or farewell. Today is Ash Wednesday. That's all over.

Today is the beginning of Lent 2010. Not quite the same kind of fanfare as opening ceremonies for the Olympics, no inauguration speeches, not much except a bare church, no more alleluia, and every song we play seems grim and unappealing.

I used to hate Lent. As a child in Catholic school, it came right about the time you were so sick of radiator heat and that fuzzy feeling of winter lasting too long. Cold, the snow days sputtering out the teaching time. It's like the movie Groundhog's Day. Every day the same and miserable. February is the shortest month but in the classroom it is the absolute longest. (Until you're a teacher and then you find yourself slipping under your plans for some reason in February--and catch up all of March). By the time Lent starts, I was tired of scarves and hats and static electricity and canned soup.

And then it was Lent--soup changed to macaroni and cheese with fish sticks, which was no improvement whatsoever. And school switched over to this punishing schedule of spooky rituals involving crucifixion--stations of the cross, adoration, lots of kneeling, dirt on your forehead. Low on the explanation of liturgy or season. It's LENT. DO IT. Or, more often, DON'T DO IT. Lent and the word "lint" were the same in my mind until at least 3rd grade. That junk in the bottom of your pocket? That was the season before Easter.

But now it's different. I don't know if it's adulthood, an internal drive to know more about God and religion, or simply my time involved with the Atrium, but it's different now. Now, it's not stale and punishing. Now it is preparation for the feast. When I think of Lent these days I think of the song "Idle (Rabbit Song)" by Hem:

Restless stars through the trees
Enough to fall to our knees
Gonna waste some time with you and let this world go
Keep my heart idle
Gonna waste my time with you and let this love go
A restless heart, idle

Lent is my liturgical excuse to get off the post-Christmas merry-go-round of restlessness and simply be. As opposed to Advent, which coincides with the great and terrible Holiday Season, Lent doesn't have much I have to do. Sure, there's St. Patrick's Day, and some yard work, but really, it's a time for me to keep my heart idle, and open.