Day 81: Lent

It's Lent and I'm not Catholic.  But I like liturgy, and I like the idea of giving up something for someone else.  This year I gave up sugar.  And it lasted about three days.  The truth is, as much as I say I'm giving up something for someone else, I'm giving it up for me.  And Lent becomes the excuse.  

This year the Church of Scotland is suggesting that people give instead of give-up for Lent.  Forty days of giving.  I love it.  When we give up something - like swearing or sugar or homework (as my students used to say) the benefit is ours alone.  We lose five pounds, we discover new vocubulary words. Whatever.  But when we give- a loaf of bread or a handshake, the effect goes further than ourselves. 

So this year I'm giving for Lent.  Yesterday I gave a second chance to someone who probably didn't deserve it.   Today I gave the last slice of pizza to my husband.  I was trying to think up some great distraction so he would leave the room and I could grab the slice of pepperoni before he came back in.  Then I remembered Lent.  And I knew this was my thing to give.  So I said, "You go ahead, I'm full," Micky and me watching as he ate the last bites.

It's hard to give the things we really want. The last slices.    But in the end this is love. It sounds ridiculous that love might be found in a slice of pizza, but love is in the giving of pieces of our hearts.  Love is giving the hours in our days.  Love is giving the money in our wallets.  Love is giving every bit that makes up who we are.   Bits that we want to keep for ourself. 

Lent is the preparation of our hearts for the presence of the Divine. For the death of Christ, which is perhaps the greatest single act of love known to mankind. So Lent must be about love. And love, I say, is about giving.