Is This Not the Fast That I Choose

I want so bad to put up some eloquent and lovely post on the Lenten season. We celebrate the mystery of the death of Christ and his resurrection, with a special call for repentance, and if anything deserves thought and elucidation, it's that.

As I type, my children are fighting downstairs, and I really should log-off and address this, but they've been home for like a week now, and my patience has just about dried up, like a once-flowing stream that has turned into a trail of cracked dirt. That's where I am, folks.

I keep telling myself that I don't need to be more than what I am, but I do need to be better. Or instead of 'better,' perhaps more aware. Or open.

I was looking forward to Ash Wednesday services tomorrow, at 9:15am, but I have realized that my youngest might be home with me. Funny thing. Her preschool has scheduled a 'pajama day' party, and my children thoroughly dislike such events, with all the school kids gathered in the basement yelling and running and just being kids. They like order and relative quiet and calm behavior, except when I leave them alone at the breakfast table for the purpose of trying to compose a post on Lent.

So I was thinking of just keeping her home, or going with her. Which would mean I'd miss Ash Wednesday services, which also makes me want to cry. Because how can I be better if the one thing that helps to ground me stays elusive? That thing, of course, is time. I know my call right now isn't towards contemplation, for this very reason, but I desire it. At least a bit of it.

I suppose I could keep her home and take her with me, but I'm still working on that selfish part of me that wants to leave everyone else at home and take Mass all for myself. Because I'm still and silent and listening and not worrying that someone is scooting around too much on the bench or bending the hymnals or playing with/tripping over the kneelers or asking for a snack. It's a process.

I've been reading about other options for Lent, other than your typical sacrifices. Since I'm such a novice at my faith (even being a cradle Catholic), last year was my first foray back into Lenten sacrifice, and I gave up gossip sites. I confess to having read them daily, and knew what my clicks were contributing to, so I figured it was something worthy to do. And I haven't been back. So I consider that sacrifice worthwhile. It's one nasty thing I'm free of.

But I do understand the writings about vowing to be more loving, kinder, more generous this Lent, instead of opting for a requisite 'giving up.' Sacrifice, when you think about it, can be pretty meaningless. What's the point of giving something up for spiritual reasons, really, if you don't follow through on the need to give out? The reading for Ash Wednesday, from Isaiah 58: 1-12, which I quote from below, highlights just that.

"Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wicked-
ness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with
the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into
your house;
when you see the naked, to cover
him,
and not to hide yourself from
your own flesh?"

Yeah. Sometimes you just need to let someone else say it.

I'm pretty new, though, to this resurge in faith, so I am still going old school and will give something up. This year, I am abstaining from eating after dinner, which, if you know me, you also know this isn't something that will be easy. I do appreciate some nachos at 10:00pm. And I pretty much have some kind of snack (sometimes two) after dinner, and tend to see this late night food as a reward, so this will certainly be a nightly struggle.

Perhaps I can take this move away from gluttony and run with it. I'm hoping I can feed myself -- because, Lord knows, my cup, plate and everything else runneth over -- with something else.

Isaiah's encouragement is sound. We do not fast solely for our own benefit. Because I know I can feed others too, for these 40 days, and beyond.