light up the sky
“Nothing wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
I love that quote.
Lent started yesterday. I actually really like Lent; I’m the product of thirteen years of Catholic school and to me these forty days mean get ready. For Easter, if that’s your jam. For spring. For sacrifices and fish on Fridays and a pair of droopy three dollar L’eggs pantyhose underneath a musty-smelling purple gown for the Passion play (in eighth grade I made my debut as Crying Woman #2 and we all went to the diner afterward, grilled cheese and french fries and a crazy run around the parking lot, the smell of the pavement wet under our feet). I am from school uniforms and novenas and devotional candles, and the ritual of this season appeals to me very much.
I don’t practice, really. I’ve spent a lot of my early twenties feeling weird about my religion, the nasty underbelly of it, the yuckiness inherent in being sixteen and a girl and spending forty hours a week with nuns who want nothing more than for you to shut up and write neatly and cross your ankles and obey. I objected. I thrashed. I moved in with my boyfriend and I stopped going to church and I read Catcher in the Rye which, I’d like you to know, was banned at my high school.
This is not to say I don’t miss it. I miss it like I miss my own family. Figure out the church thing has been on my list of resolutions for three years running, but for whatever reason I haven’t been able to get there–like that part of me was still smarting, or something. Like my new life was still too new. Still, I’ve been feeling lately like maybe I’m getting closer to ready. Like maybe this Lent might be a good time to experiment–to open a book or slide into a pew or hand over my worries, finally, to something that is bigger than me.
Am trying not to waste my body. Am trying not to waste my heart.
February 18, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
It’s Lena over at The Cheeky Lotus who dropped 15 pounds in less than a month. Can you imagine?! I’d never be sad again, except at mealtimes and when other sad things happened.
February 18, 2010 @ 3:52 pm
Not to ignore the gravity of your post. I grew up Baptist and we never observed Lent, but then I went to a Presbyterian college and was surrounded by it for 4 years. I’ve always found it odd that Christmas is the holiday that gets all the attention, when really Easter and the resurrection is the amazing part.
I haven’t gone to church regularly in about 10 years, except now my husband and I are in a newlyweds sunday school class that my dad teaches. I miss some of the churchy times in my life, and feeling like I could claim my religion without being ashamed that I barely practice it. I keep thinking it’ll change with kids, which is such a lazy attitude.
February 20, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
I hope your Lenten season blesses your heart and opens some of those closed doors. When it happens, it’s amazing.