I’ve heard it said that when you grow up Catholic you never completely stop being Catholic, no matter where your spirit takes you—to Buddhism or Paganism, Yoga or Zen, atheism or my particular spiritual path: Writing.
Despite the fact that I no longer hold a Christian view of the world, and even despite my dis-ease with organized religions in general, there are aspects of my religious childhood that stay with me even now—and that serve my writing life well. One of those aspects is Lent.
Yes, Lent. That time that seems so unnecessarily self-abnegating and sanctimonious to people who don’t practice it. It turns out that the least fun, least colorful, and most difficult season of the Catholic liturgical year is the one that still resonates with me the most. The lessons I learned from Lent as I grew up in a devout Catholic household were good ones. And I draw on them in my writing life even now.
1. Lent is about being strong. For a ten-year-old, giving up something you enjoy for forty long days seems like an interminable trek across a desert. As a more-or-less middle-class kid, I seldom went without much of anything. So voluntarily giving up something I loved and actually sticking with that self-denial the whole time, even when no one was looking, even when my Protestant friends gave me a hard time about it, taught me something about myself. I could do this! All by myself! All the way to Easter! It was a tiny lesson in inner strength, but it still serves me when I write.
2. Lent makes us turn inward. During Lent you pray. During Lent you dress in dark colors. During Lent you meditate. Giving up material pleasures makes us evaluate our lives. It gets us to focus less on appearances and more on substance. Learning to look inward, to be quiet and introspective for a time, was an invaluable lesson for a child and one that led me, later in life, to turn to meditation and contemplative writing as essential parts of my spiritual path.
3. Lent teaches us patience. Waiting seems to be the entire purpose of Lent. For my childhood self, it was a complex waiting: For Christ to rise from the dead and the Easter Bunny to visit, as well as the chance to wear the new Easter dress and shoes my mother always bought me. No matter what the calendar said, Easter was the real first day of spring, and I learned to wait for it all through Lent, developing a kind of steady patience I still call on in my writing life.
4. Lent reminds us of our mortality. It starts with Ash Wednesday, when we are bluntly told, “Dust thou art.” Lent reminds us that we are not here forever. It’s a somber message, but not a terrifying one. It reminds me that I must do my life’s work now. This is my time to be who I am. That time is limited. I must use it well.
I liked how you pointed these practices toward writing and the writing life in its lovely sacredness. Do you think that most writers also have a tendency toward the ascetic life and, therefore, writers can lend themselves more easily to lent? Just curious… I enjoy posts that make me go “hmm…”
Good point Darla. Actually, I do believe writers have a tendency toward an ascetic life. In my book, I write a lot about the monastic aspect of writers’ lives. It think it ties into that.