Some Words...

Today is the first day of Lent. Do you know what that means? Well it probably means diddly if you are not Catholic or Orthodox. Some of you probably celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday and I bet most of you didn't know the real reason that celebration originated. Fat Tuesday falls on the Tuesday before Lent. It's a day to 'live it up' before Ash Wednesday which marks the day you are supposed to start your 40 day journey of soul searching and repentance. I used to find it strange that although lent is supposed to be about finding some higher moral ground, the most common practice during Lent is to sacrifice something you really love or find hard to live without. I'm not sure why giving something up that you love, like sex or chocolate equates to soul searching. Unless maybe people find it hard to really see themselves or do any sort of repentance unless they are horny and devoid of sugar. I guess I can relate to that. There have been times in my life that sex overshadowed many truths. Like the times that I thought having sex with someone meant that they actually cared about me. Times that I thought having sex would actually fix problems that seemed unsolvable. Times that I thought having sex without emotion was just as pleasurable as when my heart was involved. I was wrong each and every single time. Maybe that's why we do it, give up something we think we can't live without, to prove to ourselves that clarity rarely comes without sacrifice. And the repentance part, I think that's about accepting what we find when that 40 day journey ends.

Today I'm starting my journey and for the next 40 days I'm going to sacrifice something I've been trying to get rid of for thirty some years. Clutter. I'm laying that load I've been carrying on my shoulders down by the roadside. I'm learning that it's hard to travel with so much baggage. Sometimes we hang on to so much junk.