I’m standing in front of my late wife’s closet. Happy Lent. I mean, can you say that?
Let me step back, both from the closet and that sentence. In my last piece for Guideposts.org I conjured up memories of my boyhood Lents, the whiff of candle wax and incense, the saints shrouded in purple, a practice which I never completely understood. So much of Lent was connected to church and my duties as an altar boy, and the obscure, ancient rituals we observed. And some not so ancient ones.
“What have you given up for Lent, Edward?” Father Walling would ask.
“Swearing.”
“You shouldn’t swear anyway. That doesn’t count.”
Traditions of Lent
Even as I was tripping over my cassock, I understood that the 40 days of Lent were the sacrificial prelude to the miracle of Easter and the Risen Redeemer. In fact, in the ancient church Lent was a period of intense purification for those wishing to convert to Christianity and who fasted and purged in preparation for baptism on Easter. Only in later centuries did the tradition arise among the faithful of honoring these catechumens by making small sacrifices themselves, a habit or pleasure you would temporarily relinquish, like milkshakes or going to the movies.
There was also this odd ripple: You were exempt from this self-denial on Sundays. Lawyers must have been involved in this decision because I could never make sense of it.
READ MORE: What Is the Meaning of Lent: Why Do We Observe It?
A Fresh Dimension of Lent
By the time I was a teenager I was running out of new things to give up and later, when I found a fresh dimension of spirituality in 12-step groups, where you truly did suffer and struggle to give something up to God, I questioned the whole purpose of these trivial gestures. Did God really care if we didn’t chew gum for Lent? Weren’t some of the things we abandoned for our own good?
And yet I cannot forget how everyone in my family would disclose what they had given up, especially my parents. As I have written, Dad was a sugar junkie and chocoholic who predictably fell off the Lenten wagon. He may have thought of himself as setting a poor Christian example, but those petty fails made him seem more human to me than he would ever know. My mother, as usual, was a different story.
Mom just charged ahead, doing more rather than less—more volunteering, more prayer, more giving. She did more of what helped others and sacrificed her time and energy doing so. Additive in her sacrifice rather than subtractive. She showed that you could do Lent without church—that a meaningful Lenten sacrifice could be more than a church-bound ritual.
The Sacrifice of Giving
I lost my wife, Julee, last June. Since then, I have resisted doing something with her things. She had a serious wardrobe. She used to say, “I don’t have children, I have clothes.” Don’t worry, she said it with a smile. Julee couldn’t have children.
Why couldn’t I distribute these things? I could use the closet space. That’s what Julee would have said. I could still hear the wry note in her voice. No, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t trying to hang on to her. I was past that. It just seemed like such an insurmountable task, and I was Sisyphus. And how would Bloomingdale’s survive without her?
I fingered a delicately embroidered silk scarf in scarlet which held a trace of Joy, her perfume. It was still tucked under the collar of a sleek coat. The world was full of people who needed clothes, especially this time of year. Nice clothes, any kind of clothes. New York City was dealing with an influx of immigrants, most of whom arrived with only the shirts on their backs. There were the homeless and homeless shelters. The working poor. The people Jesus cared for and cared about. Why couldn’t I undertake this task for Lent? I could. It would be my Lent.
And maybe not just this year. This could be a Lenten practice every year. I have plenty of clothes I don’t need. Most of us do. There’s a drop box right at the end of my block and several churches nearby that hold clothing drives. It’s what my mother would do. Lent was about the sacrifice of giving.
A Last Act of Love
I won’t try and fool you by saying a lot of this emotional paralysis about clothes and loss and guilt and so many other things is not part of grieving, and I wonder if grief is something we learn to live through or learn to live with. Or if it is just the last act of love.
One year Julee said she was going to give up smoking for Lent.
“But, Jules, you quit smoking years ago,” I scoffed.
“Yes, but it’s a process. I think it counts.”
Yes, it’s a process. Happy Lent.
How would you observe Lent without church?
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