The Fast

We finished Food Week with a bang. On Monday night, to celebrate Peter's birthday and to do his turkey proud, we had triple-decker club sandwiches, with tomato-basil soup and avocado fries. Last night, for Mardi Gras, we went the way of the Bayeux, and simmered and spiced up some Jamabaya set to the beat of Creedance Clearwater Revival. We finished each meal with Oma's signature pound cake, Peter's birthday present, which is now entirely gone. And leaves me calculating just how much butter I consumed via that cake in the past four days.

Now full, satisfied, and hopefully not too pleasantly plump, it's time to fast and focus on more spiritual nutrients as we start the Lenten season.

In Lents past, I used to give up something with little to no success. Desserts for instance. Typically, a week into Lent I would find myself eating a bowl of ice cream and starting to make exceptions to my rule. So by the time Holy Thursday rolled around it seemed perfectly acceptable in my mind to have dessert at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This year, I really want to try do something bigger and better. I want to make it work. And I want to head into Holy Week, feeling that I'm in a better place spiritually than I was before. So I've decided to make a promise to look with a keener eye, listen with a more captive ear and connect with more of my soul. It's a promise that requires several steps.

1. I'm giving up Facebook. Well, not entirely. Part of my job and livelihood depend on it, so I'm giving it up in the evenings, when I get home from work. This is going to help me listen without distraction. 
2. I'm giving up alcohol. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If the first week works, I will add on Thursday. And so on throughout Lent. This is to help me look without fog. 
3. I'm committing to attend weekday mass at least once a week, ten minutes of quiet prayer every day, and Reconciliation at least twice during these 40 days. This is to help me connect better to a world that is so close to us, yet so far away too much of the time. 
4. And hey, for the heck of it, I'll give up desserts, and see how long I last. I'm predicted that I'll fold when Josephine fills up her candy jar after lunch.

Finally, and this is a big maybe, so I'm not numbering it: Use my words to talk about something really important. Though I laugh in the face of the dangers of public sharing, there are a couple of things that I am reluctant to share. One of which, is my unwavering faith. So I always get a little nervous, even afraid, talking about something so personal, so essential to my being, and so sensitive. But I have a feeling that I may need to commit some public-facing words to a more spiritual conversation this Lent. There is a lot going on, a lot that has made an impression lately, stuff that I might want to work out here. We'll see. Maybe when I start seeing better.  

For now, just say a little prayer that I'm better at numbers 1 through 4 this year.

Lo.