Lent

 

It started with the mite boxes. The Sunday before the start of lent the nun gave every kid in Sunday school a little container where you were supposed to put dimes in from your allowance. Then on Easter the mite box, full of dimes, was supposed to be turned into the collection box at church. On Ash Wednesday you were supposed to go to church after school to get ashes. When I was young, the priest put this ugly circle of ash on your forehead. Nowadays they have a gizmo that puts a black cross above your eyes. 

For a kid, the biggest thing was that you had to give up something for lent. You knew your father would want to know what you gave up.  It should appear to be significant. It couldn't be something too easy but then again you wouldn't want it to be too hard. If you hated garlic you couldn't give up garlic for lent. Then again you didn't want to do something too painful like giving up listening to rock and roll. Ideally, it would be something that seemed like a sacrifice but really wasn't. For example with my poor record on cavities Mother had banned chocolate from the house. Hence giving up chocolate would be an easy choice. As an adult giving up hanging out in bars would be too painful but perhaps giving up artichokes or eggplant would be a better choice.  

The nice part about lent is that you could go back to your evil ways on Sundays and on Holy Saturday at noon. This did make Easter a more significant day since you could go back to gorging yourself on chocolate or artichokes again. Lent shows us how much we can enjoy things after having denied ourselves. Like shore leave or having pizza and beer after a blood test we are happy to again enjoy the evil pleasures of life.