The season of lent.
Lent started this week.It's tradition among Christians to give up something they enjoy during this season to give up something to honor and emulate Jesus' self-imposed exile of suffering in the desert those millenia ago. There are, of course a number of other rites and rituals that come along with the Lenten season, but sacrificing something you enjoy is probably the most recognizable one.
Problem is, I don't know what to give up! That feeling of contentment that I wrote about those two months back? Still got it. Hey, when you're happy, you're happy. All the goals I have right now are just icing. Pass the PE. Finish that project at work. Learn new dance patterns. Nothing is pressing. I don't really need or want the extra income and responsiblity inherent in getting a PE, but simply having it would be nice. As far as projects go, it's better to complete things at your own pace because a new project will rise to take its place (mind you, I work for the public sector so I have that luxury), and finally--dancing is just all fun and games, really.
In short, I don't want to give up any element of this contentment thing for Lent! All of college and much of my short lived military career sucked. It's nice to relax and reap the immediate benefits of my past suffering. I am very thankful for what I have now: rent-free lodging in a beautiful area of california with a stable job.
Instead of giving something up for Lent, would it be feasible to re-acquire something, though? One thing that has been flagging for awhile in my personal life is my spirituality. Though it's not really my faith in God that has been waning--I can express how thankful I am to Him for my current situation; it's my faith in people. When you life in such a populous place as CA, you see all degrees of human interaction. Mostly, I've seen many instances of people treating other people badly. And it's not only here--all across the world is the same kind of craziness. Genocide on the African continent. Forgotten victims of the Holiday Tsunami and the two-year old earthquake in Bam, Iran. Countless civilian casualties in the Middle East due to religious sectarian violence and some idiot's rendition of the Prophet. What was the artist thinking? What are the people who violently protest this stuff thinking? Hell, even coming out of the church parking lot I see folks cutting off their fellow parishioners just to get out of the lot a few nanoseconds faster. If I see people that just came out of church trying to one-up their fellow man, how can I maintain the faith that people will love one another as Jesus taught us? I can't. I can't even believe nowadays that people who go to church are even hearing the message being spoken in the scripture, the gospel, or the homily. It all seems worthless and pointless to me to even attend mass anymore--no one listens and adheres to what's being said. Why should I?
That's been my train of thought of late. As I said earlier, my faith in God hasn't been shaken. It's my faith in His human creation. I really wish I had some good folks around to have fellowship with these days to remind me of the proper way to conduct myself and how to interpret things according to the Bible. Most of my practicing Christian friends are Protestants and I still find their customs too fast and loose for my liking (I'm Catholic), but their services are fun and they have an easy to understand way of conveying things. That was kind of a non-sequiter.
So yeah...recharging my spirituality. That's what I wanna do for Lent.
posted by anthony fuego @ 12:49 AM
1 Comments:
apparently you gave up blogging for lent. i wasn't going to say anything, but i've been thinking it for a while and then mike made the same comment about 5 minutes ago. i figured the comment was then meant to be. hope you're still alive and doing well.
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