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| Transfigured Light, St. Martin's Church, Ellisville. |
Today is Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi
Gras— which includes a lot of strange customs for this girl who grew up in the
buckle of the incredibly Protestant Bible Belt. St. Louis, although
usually being as frozen at this time of year as a barrel of brass monkeys, is
also strangely home to a Mardi Gras celebration marinated in the pale,
midwestern version of excesses one normally only finds in New Orleans—but with
added possibility of frostbite along the parade route to give the tradition
that extra little kick. Laissez le bon temps rouler, indeed. I have also finally grown
accustomed to the disorienting eating-of-pancakes-drowning-in-syrup in the
darkness that only 6 pm in the middle of winter can bring. The sausage only
partially redeems this custom for me, because breakfast belongs in the morning
in my mind, and I just can’t shake it. If the point of this custom was to get
rid of the sweet rich foods lying around the house, I’d as lief eat cheesecake.
Say, now-- there’s an idea I could really get behind.
But besides all the eating and the
parading and the collecting of plastic beads that has become much of the public
face of this day, usually sundered from any of its religious meaning, there’s
another point. “Shrove” comes from “shrive”—an old English word that means
“absolution” or “forgiveness.” It is on this day that we prepare to enter the
season of Lent, and that we are encouraged to take stock of any sins we have
committed, any repentance we need to make. It is also a time when many of us
who attempt to observe a holy Lent are often prone to “give something up” for
Lent: swearing, or drinking soda pop, or chocolate, or electronics. Some of us
fast from all food or simply meat on Ash Wednesday and on Friday. The taking on
of such a special discipline is meant to help us focus our priorities during
the 40 days of Lent, from being reminded of our mortality on Ash Wednesday
through the somberness of Holy Week, to emerge in the glorious resurrection
light of Easter.
There’s a special challenge in
making promises like this at this time of year. It’s cold, and no matter
what the groundhog said, we know that the hope of spring can seem stubbornly
distant, even with Earth at its perihelion in its wobbly orbit around the sun.
Perhaps it’s another way to have a go at peeling away something unhealthy
amidst the tattered remains of many a New Year's resolution. But what if we
looked at this from another angle? What if we thought of this as a chance for
true repentance—a literal turning from away from one thing in hope of something
better? Rather than giving up, what if we set an intention for ourselves to
give in, with an emphasis on the word “give?” What if we used this Lent as a
chance to give in, to look in, to lean in--- to try to surrender fears,
attitudes, and failures of heart that separate us from the love of God we are
called to embody, to take into our very heart and soul and mind. When we
surrender these things, there is then a space hollowed out in our hearts that
can be filled with Christ.
At a time when life can feel as
small and cool as a stone, Lent can be a time to release the heavy weight of
fear that infests so much of our public and private narratives. It is no
accident that the glorious reminder of the Transfiguration still dances in our
mind's eye today as we are called to repentance. So let's take a deep breath
with each other today. Seek out and welcome being shriven. Let Lent be the slow
exhale that purifies and lightens, that opens the way for the risen Christ to
be breathed in, to fill us when we emerge on the other side with light and
life.
This was first published on Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for February 9, 2016.)
