What are you giving up?

Yes, it's Lent ... the 40-day fast leading up to Easter. It's the time of fasting, of preparation, of ... well, my Christian friends should know what I'm talking about. Truth be told, it's them I think about most at such times.

Yes, I have quite a number of friends and acquantances who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior and who have been washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb and are ... according to them ... guaranteed a place in Heaven. Just like the guy who shot up those people at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

I know, I know ... I shouldn't be so cynical. You're right. I shouldn't be, but unfortunately, I can't help but be when confronted with ideas like that.

I have other friends, you know. Yep, friends who are intelligent, enlightened, awakened, who know that all that religion stuff if mumbo-jumbo and only science holds the keys to truth. Yes, these self-proclaimed Enlightened Ones also missed the quantum-physical revolution in which it became clear that matter is scientifically verified to be an illusion and something other than matter and alleged laws drive the universe. There is more than one form of superstition alive and well in the world.

If you think I'm picking on either of these groups, you would be sorely mistaken. I'm not. Why should I? As long as they believe what they believe and don't try to make others accept their own personal delusions and are not harming anyone, why should it bother me. At heart, they're all really nice people: friendly, generous in their own ways, and wanting nothing more that the world be less violent, unjust, and surreal than it is. Good luck.

Whether you think Easter is anything worth celebrating, it is, like Christmas (though under under names) a festival that has been celebrated since time immemorial. Yes, animistic, mythic, pagan, Christian ... it doesn't matter. At this time of year, somebody somewhere had some reason to celebrate and it's still around today. The "reasons" may be different, but we celebrate all the same. In times passed, people prepared for their celebrations. Today, well, we have no need to do anything we don't want to or don't feel like doing. We're free and liberated human beings -- or so we like to think -- and besides, we're going to Heaven anyway: after all, we said the right words in the right way at the right time in the right place. What could possibly go wrong?

There was (and still is) something of a reason for Lent, and an even more important reason for observing it. Even as obscure as it is, Lent is (yet another) opportunity to get in touch with your real you, the you inside, the you you've been avoiding as long as you've been alive, the you that's brought the world to the eve of destruction (to paraphrase and capitalize on a well-known oldie-but-goodie).

OK, giving something up for Lent won't save the world. I don't think it will even save just you alone. But giving things up, denying yourself something you really like, even if just for a short period of time, if done seriously, can help you get a different view of the world in which you find yourself. It doesn't hurt, and who knows what good might come of it.

Of course, if you already have a get-out-of-hell-free card it doesn't matter, just as it doesn't matter that you believe nothing at all. The real world, though, is still somewhere in-between, where the rest of us mere humans live.

What about February's not to love

February's longer than usual this year. OK, OK ... it's longer than usual every four years. But, in my mind, leap years are nothing special: they're just a way to organize our precious calanders so that the appear to function. The sun revolves around the earth as it always has and how we mark those revolutions has changed throughout the millennia, but who cares about that? Certainly not many people I know. Hell, most people don't know why we count time the way we do, or how we decide what the "correct" time is (as if there were such a thing), or why Christmas is celebrated when it is (and I'm talking to my holier-than-thou Christian readers) or why we celebrate New Year's when we do, but all of that doesn't matter to the everyday, trying-to-keep-my-head-above-water workaholic that most of us have become.

Let's be honest, regardless of our alleged religious beliefs, we spend a whole lot of time just muddling through, trying to ensure we can pay the bills, and, if all goes well, have a bit or relaxation in-between. Let me let you in on a little secret: that's mere existence, it has nothing to do with living at all.

But, be that as it may ... in just a few days, the "Mad Season" will end. Of what do I speak? Allow me a little pointer toward another way to mark the days:

Way back in November, when Anglophones were pretending to care about those who died to bring us the freedom we never had, a simultaneous, mostly-unknown-outside-Germany event took place, but one much more to my liking: on the 11th day of the 11th month, at 11 minutes after the 11th hour, Karneval (as it's known in the Cologne region) or Fasching (as it's known most other places) begins. It runs from 11 November though Ash Wednesday, culminating of course on Rose Monday (the Monday before Ash Wednesday). Fasching is the season of fools, jesters, and all the critical insight that goes with them. (If you don't believe that fools are wise, read a couple of Shakespeare's tragedies, or do a bit of googling on "Till Eulenspiegel".) As for the States, it's called Mardi Gras, but unless you're from New Orleans, you probably don't know much about it anyway.

Though I'm not a big Fasching celebrator myself (it's much more popular in Catholic regions, since Ash Wednesday is a big day for Catholics, but not for Protestants), I'm glad it's still celebrated -- in all senses of the word -- here. There's a lot of silliness, and revelry, good, biting political cabaret, and music, and parades, and costumes, and the driving off of evil spirits, and things blatantly pagan masquerading within the bounds of good old Church tradition. We Americans, in particular, with our predilection to all things Puritanical and Calvinist miss out on all the fun. We like to think of ourselves a free spirits, but until you've been to Cologne on Rose Monday, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Of course, this year it will be different, but elucidating the reasons would detract from all the fun, and wouldn't most of us just prefer to have fun, regardless of what else is going on around us?

Happy Easter!

Just in case you were wondering, I have to admit that I'm enjoying this Easter a little more than some in the past. Oh, sure, the weather is more or less cooperating (I remember snowstorms, frost, sleet and rain on some); but I am also sort of enjoying the squirming some of the non-Orthodox Christians are going through this year. This isn't schadenfreude, it's merely an observation.

You will recall that the Roman Church and most Protestants would rather celebrate Christmas than Easter. For many of them, as is the case for many moderns regardless of persuasion, spirituality is a bit difficult to deal with. By focusing on the physical we can avoid all that messy metaphysical stuff. Up until now, the Paulites had the say: Jesus was killed for your sins; own up to it, accept it, proclaim it (preferably loudly) and you're home free (as far as the Protestants were concerned; you had to register this, so to speak, with the authorities and the Catholics considered you part of the club).

Unfortunately, this is just one view: Paul's. There are still some "weirdos" out and about, however, who think that Christianity has something to do with what Jesus said and did while he was alive, that what was important was not so much what you say, but what you actually do. The way I see it, this is precisely the approach that Papa Frank is pushing. I can't begin to imagine that he's making a lot of friends with it either. And that's why I'm feeling a little more upbeat today than usual.

So, whether you're getting ready for spring, looking for hidden eggs with the kids, having a special dinner, or simply wondering what others might be celebrating, I hope you have fun doing it, and I hope you have fun doing it with others. Easter should be, in my view, a family holiday. It's as good a reason as any to simply get everyone together and to spend some special time, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Yes, live it up. After all, that's what this particular holiday is supposed to be about.

Maundy Thursday

It is clear to me that many who read these posts regularly are bothered, if not downright offended, when I compare our current plutocratic capitalism to a religion. What is interesting, to me at least, that some of the upholders of that view are bothered as well as others of faith are bothered. That's a good thing. We should be bothered by ideas from time to time.

The advocates of "the system" like to think they are not religious, but I think it's pretty clear they are. They simply have a different set of beliefs that those who believe they are religious. The patterns are the same, the mechanisms are the same, there are rituals and professions of "true belief" involved, and -- most unfortunately -- the outcomes are pretty much the same (more death and destruction than life and growth). The religionists don't like it because they think being compared to a secular club somehow denigrates their religion. It only does if you allow it to, or if you practice what you call religion in such a way that it is hard to distinguish from its secular counterpart. That's where we are by all who believe that their religion is the true religion. This applies to fundamentalists of all stripes, but considering the real-life timing of this post, we're going to concentrate on our Christian friends.

Today marks the real beginning of the Passion of Easter. It should be, by all rights, the highest four days of devotion for all those who call themselves Christian. We need to remember: no Easter (that is, no death and resurrection) there's no Christianity. It's very existence depends on the events of these days 2,000 years ago. As it is, it is the Eastern Church, the so-called Orthodox varieties, who make this holiday the high point of the year. For the Roman Catholics and Protestants, it's Christmas; that is the celebration of the physical birth. If we look at the contention that Jesus was crucified, put to death, buried and arose again on the 3rd day, well, then what we are dealing with here is a spiritual birth. Religions, being by nature spiritual, you'd think that today would be the kick-off of the time of greatest celebration, but it isn't. We're going to spend a lot more time looking for hidden eggs and eating chocolate.

It's not exactly clear to me why, but I do have my suspicions.