Today at my office, the parking lot we share with the Roman Catholic Church next door was filled with parishioners heading to church at lunch time to get ashes on their foreheads. For those of you who don't know the reason for the ashes, I'm probably not the best person to explain this ritual, but I know that Ash Wednesday is the official start of "Lent," a six-week period leading up to Easter, in which Catholics are supposed to be extra vigilant in their lamenting and atonement for their sins, I guess in order to feel a little more worthy of Jesus' sacrifice on Good Friday, when Mel Gibson and/or a bunch of Jews staked him to a cross and grossed a few hundred million dollars at the box office. Or something like that. I grew up Catholic and went to CCD every week for like 8 years (including several retreats where we played basketball and swam and learned all about how premarital sex was a sin), but I don't really remember the specific origins of Lent. I know that we weren't supposed to eat meat today -- or on any Friday for the next six weeks, although fish is ok, so it's not an anti-protein thing -- and we're also supposed to "give something up," which typically was a food product that you love but is bad for you -- something like ice cream or all desserts, or if you're feeling particularly pious, all sweets. You could also give up something else "bad" that you do -- smoking? drinking? whoring? I'm not sure because as a kid, I always gave up food. It was usually ice cream. I mean, it's too cold to eat ice cream for the first few weeks of Lent anyway and I wouldn't exactly miss it for the rest. I remember one year I gave up gum, because I used to (and still do) chew a pack of gum a day. My dentist was probably grateful but I'm not sure if anyone enjoyed a conversation with me during those six weeks. The point is -- when you're young, you'll believe in anything, and if your parents and your teachers and your priests and your relatives all tell you that it's perfectly normal to stick a big swatch of black ashes across your forehead on one Wednesday in February, you just do it and don't ask questions. And you may moan about having to eat your mother's flavorless attempt at baked flounder yet another week, but hey, there's always pizza, and you can survive without pepperoni for a little while if it means you'll get into heaven. Because that's really what this day is all about -- and all these religious rites that we choose (or are forced as children) to follow. We're looking for eternal salvation at the end of our lives, for some mystery fantasyland described in our scriptures and our paintings and our stories and our myths. And that sounds a whole lot better than an eternity in that really hot place down South (not Jacksonville, necessarily). So if I had to brown bag peanut-butter-and-jelly or tuna fish for lunch for a few weeks, it seemed worth it. Plus, there's the whole feeling of moral superiority (or at least spiritual significance) at believing that your sacrifice is for some greater good, even though, let's be honest, the only thing affected by your Friday eating choices are the sales of plain pies at the local Pizza Hut.
I stopped going to church regularly in college, mostly out of laziness rather than any sort of rejection of Catholic teachings or disbelief in God. I mean, Sunday mornings were not exactly the easiest time to wake up and drive over to the College Ave. campus (or take the bus, my freshman year) to participate in a mass. I think I made it to one service freshman year, maybe two. The rest of the time it was a struggle to even make it to the dining halls before brunch ended (which I believe was 1:30 pm -- yes, we would sleep until then). I still went with my family to Easter and Christmas and the occasional forced service if I happened to be home on a Sunday, but after college, when I was living on my own and generally awake on a Sunday morning before noon, I never had the compulsion to attend. I had the guilt, yes. Catholic guilt takes a long time to leave the body. But that wasn't enough to get me to go to church. Eventually I started to look more seriously into religion and into Catholicism, specifically, and found myself disagreeing with many of the basic tenets of their teachings. The fundamentalist revival that swept through the country on Republican wings in the late '90s and the Bush years were probably the cause, but I found myself at odds with "my" religion on issues such as abortion, birth control, abstinence-only education, gay rights, the "indecency" debate (Howard Stern, Janet Jackson, etc.). On pretty much any and all social issues, I didn't agree with my church, which is fine (I guess) but the fundamentalists were pretty clear that we weren't supposed to pick and choose which part of our religion (or scripture) to follow. It was all or nothing, to them, and anyone who even thought about voting for an abortion rights supporter was going to Hell. That struck me as a little extreme. And I was pretty confident in my own beliefs that a God who had created the world wouldn't give a shit whether someone wore a condom to avoid an STD (or a baby) and certainly wouldn't give a shit whether someone said "shit" on prime time TV. Not to mention that I think this God wouldn't be on the Church's side in the whole "having sex with minors" part of so many priests' daily routines. It wasn't hard for me to pretty much break from the Church and their moralizing ways. And to move on to more existential questions like "if they are so wrong about so many things both today (sex, morality) and throughout history (war, slavery, lots of wars, sexism, virulent antisemitism), what else are they wrong about?" Heaven and Hell? Jesus? God himself? I won't get into any of those thoughts here, and this isn't an appropriate place anyway, but I stopped going to Church, even on holidays, and I went from feeling guilty about it to feeling proud.
The last time I went to Catholic Church, other than for someone's wedding or communion or some other family obligation, was about 4 years ago, when I felt like I needed some spiritual awakening and decided to go to the local church in my town for the first time. The services were generally light and pleasant, without much moralizing or preaching and much more about the better parts of religion -- caring for others, sacrificing for others, charity, kindness, etc. Those are wonderful virtues and if that's what modern Catholicism were about on a regular basis, I could see myself attending again. And if you are part of a church like that, more power to you. Catholic charities are -- I believe -- some of the most helpful organizations in the world for the poorest and sickest among us. And that's wonderful. Unfortunately, after a few months of attending this church in my town, the preacher mentioned politics one too many times for me and I couldn't help but be offended. I think it was an election year and they actually passed out postcards at the end of mass urging us to fill out our Senators names to urge them to vote for or against something (I forget what, now, but it was one of those ultra-conservative fundamentalist issues). That was it for me. And I've never been back.
Yet until last year, I still avoided meat on Fridays during Lent and still gave up something every year, still "sacrificed." It was silly and a waste of time and energy, but habits -- especially ones forced onto you for years and years -- are certainly hard to break. So when I saw the people leaving the church today in the parking lot they share with my office, I couldn't help but smile. I'd forgotten all about Ash Wednesday. I'd forgotten all about Lent. I'd eaten a turkey sandwich for lunch and I hadn't been struck down by lightning from above. And I have no doubt in my mind that the turkey sandwich at lunch or the breast of chicken for dinner will not in any way affect my destination in the "afterlife." It's just a silly superstition. I could see if we Catholics took the next six weeks to start volunteering at soup kitchens. That's a worthy use of our time (and I'm sure many Catholics do that -- I'm also sure many non-Catholics do as well, but that's a whole other debate). But I never did. And no one I know who followed the Lenten sacrifice did. We just stopped eating meat. And that is silly. And I'd been doing it for so many years, even after I'd stopped attending Church, even after I'd come to despise Catholicism, only because of my own silly superstitions.
It's a wonderfully freeing feeling to be past those superstitions now. I spent the first 35 years of my life feeling proud that I remembered to eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch once a year on a Wednesday in February. Now I feel even prouder that I did not.
Oh, and one last side note to Rob, even though I know he doesn't read this blog -- sorry for forcing you to eat plain pizza for lunch all those Fridays during Lent. You were right. I was stupid. Although Bertucci's had a pretty mean meatless onion pizza.
(Comments are open).
You are going to hell you heathen bastard.
Posted by: Bob Barley | February 26, 2009 at 08:10 AM
Meat is fine. It's bread you are supposed to avoid for a week.
Posted by: LegFuJohnson | February 26, 2009 at 09:08 AM
We look forward to seeing you and friend. Ching chow chong!!
Posted by: Crown Palace | February 26, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Amen, brother
Posted by: Religiulous | February 26, 2009 at 11:42 AM