What a difference a week makes! Our tiny house is overrun with teenagers. Our daughter came home for spring break and brought an adorable friend from Australia with her. Our house is generally a moment away from chaos at any given time. With two kids, two dogs and a surly cat, plus the parents, there is generally a lot going on.
Coming home this week I was confronted with mounds of laundry, more electronic devices than I have ever seen scattered around our living room, and dogs in a constant state of anticipation of being fed a second or even third time accidently. To our amusement, our eight-year-old son is beginning to speak with an ever-so-slight Australian accent. And we love it!
Having a houseguest can be fun. Of course, there is that old expression that “fish and fowl like friends go stale after three days.” We have not encountered that with our newest teenage “daughter.” In fact, quite the opposite. She joins us as we watch the evening news and offers her own perspective, well informed and articulated. Of course watching the news this week, it has been challenging to determine what is real and what is not. At times we have had five laptops going, each looking to authenticate a particular news item—sometimes not the easiest thing to do. It has been interesting to watch her process our American political process. Words and phrases like “bloody legendary” and “bonkers” and “bullocks” are heard during the news broadcast.
With our daughter home, church was a definite this past weekend (and next weekend too). It was the first Sunday since Ash Wednesday so it was all about Lent, which is one of our favorite times of the year because it ends with Easter. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, describes Lent as “the time we are invited to come back to church.” In our house, it is sometimes known as “New Year’s Resolutions Part II,” but with a twist. New Year’s we vow to do something to improve our lives (i.e., more gym, less chocolate, more tolerance—you get the gist). For Lent we are meant to give something up for 40 days. Again, no chocolate. Actually we are supposed to give up our vices. So it could be chocolate, alcohol, coffee, tobacco; whatever you consider to be a vice. And this can lead to having some cranky neighbors and friends.
One of Lent’s central components is for individuals to undertake some form of fasting. While many limit this to one of our vices, that does not stop New Orleans from hosting their annual Mardi Gras celebration. It is legendary. The epic partying culminates on “Fat Tuesday” (yup, the day before Ash Wednesday) with people partying all night long in the streets, getting fat, before “fasting” for 40 days.
Here is an interesting fact we stumbled across. Lent is supposed to be 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, but that is actually 46 days. There happen to be six Sundays during lent. If you removed them, then my math brings it down to the required 40 days. Following that logic, you can take each Sunday off from your Lenten sacrifice. We are not theologians and recommend strongly checking this logic with your house of worship. We would not like to accidently lead anyone astray.
As we move through the Lent season houses of worship throughout town will be having many special services culminating with Easter Weekend. It is indeed a wonderful time of year to go back to church. With crocuses already popping up on Put’s Hill the renewal of spring is in the air. For many of us, that is what Lent is as well, a time of renewal of our faith.
We asked our Australian houseguest what she did for Easter. Her family goes to church then a “walkabout in the bush” followed by an Easter Egg Hunt. A world apart, but it sounds like what we do here: just insert Tod’s Point.
P.S.: If you see us and we are a little cranky, we apologize. Giving up coffee gives us headaches.
