Lent

I've never celebrated Lent. However, over the years I have participated in a church-wide (my local church) Daniel fast, a larger community wide 40-day challenge, which is a type of fasting, and have had my own personal seasons of fasting. I don't remember really fasting as a kid, and I remember thinking about fasting as I got a little older, but it didn't really make sense to me despite reading the stories of cities that fasted and the miracle of the Esther story that involves a great bit of fasting--I just didn't get it. However, one day during middle school I found a passage in Isaiah in which God basically says, and forgive my paraphrasing, 'why do you fast and then do what ever you want? Why on your day of fasting are you mean to people and punch them in the face? That isn't what fasting is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be about taking care of those who need it and breaking addictions and conquering suck.' ( See Isaiah 58) and it hit me, I guess what fasting was supposed to be about, why it was so powerful, and why it is a good thing. After I gained  bit of understanding, I liked Lent a little bit more than I did previously. However, then I fully realized what Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras were about and I was disgusted. They are fun traditions, but the theological basis for the "holidays" are not existent. It doesn't make sense to me to stuff your face with as much food and alcohol as possible, or to get all your "sin" out of the way before you fast for a little while. Now, don't misunderstand, I'm not accusing the acts of eating and drinking to be sins. The activities of Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras seems to me to be  symbolizing getting all the sin you want out of your system before fasting. And that isn't how my understanding of fasting or Christianity works. It isn't about getting the bad stuff out of your system by doing whatever it is for a period of time, it is about ever striving to live up to the title christian--Christ like. I know I fall short of that ever day, which is ultimately okay, but that doesn't mean I get a break from that for a few days before Lent. Needless to say, when a proposal for a large pre-Lent feast came before SGA today, my religious self righteousness was aggravated about the incorrectness of it all. I voted to approve the proposal because, in that situation at least, my personal religious opinions need to be disregarded. 

And as I type this I am more aware of my own imperfections cough-I-know-self-righteousness-is-a-bad-thing-cough and conscious that everyone misunderstands something and the person who thinks they know all and lord it over others' heads is probably the most clueless of all.