Lent or What You Will

One of the nails in the coffin on my Catholic belief was Lent. Somewhere in my study of medieval agriculture, I connected the dots. The winter stores started to dry up in February… so people had to ration their food and go without until the sun started shining long enough to grow more food. Well… the poor had to go without. Counseled by the clergy and monarchs who said it was good for the soul to starve the body. Of course, there were devout rich folks, too. And some of them bought into it with absolute sincerity. But look at a couple feasts held in honor of His Majesty so and so… and clearly, there was an imbalance in Lenten sacrifice.

I also thought… well, as I got older, I thought Lent was silly. Ooh, I’m going to give up chocolate. Or soda. Or television. What does that do nowadays? Really? It doesn’t make me a better person… well, not in the Catholic respect. I don’t think my Lenten forsaking ever really gave me more sympathy to Jesus wandering around in a desert for forty days and nights, confronting the demons of his soul and doubt. Not eating candy bars isn’t really that introspective…

And yet… it could be. It can be. I have actually given up certain eating habits in the precursor to Easter a few times over the years. The act of self-discipline reminded me that the habit wasn’t unbreakable. That my day to day ritual is malleable. That I am not at the mercy of something I just do because that’s how I do it.

So maybe that is spiritual. Seeing the power of the mind over the impulse of the body. An exercise for the intangible part of my being. Maybe that’s religious. Maybe that’s organic - the chemicals in one part of my brain working harder than the chemicals in another part of my brain. I see it as will. Free will. The power of which writers have debated since Ancient Greece. What we choose to do as opposed to what we just let happen.

Wait… isn’t Lent about repenting the choices of free will? Punishing the self with all those visceral prohibitions? It could be… if you really think that sort of thing makes you a better human. I don’t think it does. I think what makes me a better human is acknowledging what I can do to make bad things better. To accept my responsibility in the contribution to something wrong and disengaging for a spell to see how I can make things right… and ultimately better.

So… this year I will choose to use the six weeks as a test to will. A reminder that habits don’t own me. That I have a choice, a free will, an individual power to make things better.