Well, everybody, guess what I'm doing for Lent. I'm giving up TEA!!!! Don't think I can do it? Stay with me, and find out!
Of course, I might rely on the Sundays-don't-count rule. And why not? Lent is a fast of 40 days and 40 nights. If you count up the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, they actually exceed 40 unless you omit Sundays.
Since Ash Wednesday is next week, I've been cutting down on tea but feeling a need to slightly increase my coffee intake. I've now been starting the day with a cup of espresso in addition to my afternoon espresso ritual. And honestly, espresso is delightful. Usually. If it's not too strong. I achieved the art of near perfection at espresso years ago and enjoyed many fine afternoons in my early college days with a cup of Medaglia d'Oro and some Nabucco.
But tea is something else entirely. Tea is cleaner. Tea is energizing. One whole cup of Green Mountain Coffee from a Keurig machine, delicious as it is, and I find that it's sticking to my esophagus--I can taste it for hours afterward. But one cup of Stash's Black Chai or my favorite loose leaf Prince of Wales tea only leaves me wanting another. And another. And another. I love this drink so much I've actually considered growing my own tea plants one day when I have property so I can use my own tea leaves for tea. And tea also has the enormous benefit of antioxidants and weight loss properties. This is one reason I want to cut back: I lost 8 lbs. in the last year. And for a naturally slim person like me coming from a long line of high metabolism, 8 lbs. is a lot! Tea is just about the only thing right now that would really be a sacrifice for me to give up.
But, why am I suddenly observing Lent, you might ask? As a "lapsed" Catholic, I haven't been to Mass, for myself at least, since the day John Paul II died almost seven years ago. I've made a few obligatory exceptions for family gatherings such as weddings, funerals, a confirmation, and the Easter I spent with my very religious grandmother in her very religious town in Italy in 2008. Why start now?
This may be difficult to explain. Part of the reason is that I have a friend who's Muslim. Over the summer, when he was fasting during daylight hours for the whole month of Ramadan, I found it really inspiring. He said he didn't really mind fasting: he enjoyed it. Much like I enjoyed giving up Rigoletto for Lent in the eighth grade. And he also felt a spiritual benefit as a result of his fasting. Not unlike the Hindu concept of tapas, the divine heat that comes from meditation. It really made me feel good to see what my friend was engaged in and so deeply motivated by. So learning about another religion really made me appreciate the one I was raised with, and I want to recover just a little piece of it.
I reached a point a long time ago when I felt I could no longer turn to the religion I grew up with for answers to the big questions: Why am I here? What do I want out of life? Why do the good die young? What if there is no God or no afterlife? What if there is no bliss? I found that Catholicism just couldn't answer those questions for me anymore, nor could Christianity or Judaism. Nevertheless, in the wake of that religion I found a huge void. Functioning without that religion has been an incredibly thorny path. Perhaps a shaky path is a better metaphor because it has meant learning to stand and to walk without a means of support. A complete and all-sustaining means of support, by the way. But just because a child learns to walk by himself does not mean that he walks away from his father and mother forever. He still has a need for and a bond to what nurtured him.
While I find that I cannot truly practice Christianity or any other religion that I've come across, certain rituals, images, and moments within Catholicism have nevertheless left a very profound impression on me. While my own worldview is generally closer to that of Norse and even Greek mythology than to Judeo-Christian ethics, nothing has ever spoken to me so deeply as the Crucifixion does. Not Wagner's Wotan, not Odysseus, not even Bilbo or Frodo Baggins. I instantly identify with the silhouette of three crosses on Golgotha.
The Crucifixion symbolizes everything: the death of God, the universal suffering and sorrow of life, the destruction and rebirth of all life, all matter, all energy. It contains the message: "You must die to yourself to be reborn." Whatever it is you have that is you and only you: destroy it. Surrender your ego. Leave aside the "I" for the "All." You must sacrifice the thing you most care about and be reborn. If you don't give it willingly, it will be taken from you and perish anyway. It is the theme expressed in the Bonfire Song in Kurosawa's film Hidden Fortress. It is the recurring message of Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is the message of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It is a story told in all times and in all places and in all languages in a variety of images, be it Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Huitzilopochtli, and myriads more. In my particular case, this story was told to me in the form of the Passion and Death of Christ. It is a form which I recognize in my own life.
And isn't this the message of Lent? I know I've had to give up many of the people I've cared about over the years. And I had to give up the main structure of my life a few years ago. But in the end, mine was a story of renewal. And what I've sacrificed has led to my own rebirth. I can look at sacrifice and change with gratitude and humility. My entire view of life has changed. I can say with Nietzsche: "Yea and amen!" to everything.
So I'm observing at least one little portion of Lent this year. Because my life is in accord with its mystery. Because all life is the Via Dolorosa. Because my life is the Via Dolorosa. Because all life is the springtime born from the ashes of the dead. And I can still see it, even without a church.
So let's give up the tea! And let's welcome our own spiritual birth. Yea and amen!
Of course, I might rely on the Sundays-don't-count rule. And why not? Lent is a fast of 40 days and 40 nights. If you count up the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, they actually exceed 40 unless you omit Sundays.
Since Ash Wednesday is next week, I've been cutting down on tea but feeling a need to slightly increase my coffee intake. I've now been starting the day with a cup of espresso in addition to my afternoon espresso ritual. And honestly, espresso is delightful. Usually. If it's not too strong. I achieved the art of near perfection at espresso years ago and enjoyed many fine afternoons in my early college days with a cup of Medaglia d'Oro and some Nabucco.
But tea is something else entirely. Tea is cleaner. Tea is energizing. One whole cup of Green Mountain Coffee from a Keurig machine, delicious as it is, and I find that it's sticking to my esophagus--I can taste it for hours afterward. But one cup of Stash's Black Chai or my favorite loose leaf Prince of Wales tea only leaves me wanting another. And another. And another. I love this drink so much I've actually considered growing my own tea plants one day when I have property so I can use my own tea leaves for tea. And tea also has the enormous benefit of antioxidants and weight loss properties. This is one reason I want to cut back: I lost 8 lbs. in the last year. And for a naturally slim person like me coming from a long line of high metabolism, 8 lbs. is a lot! Tea is just about the only thing right now that would really be a sacrifice for me to give up.
But, why am I suddenly observing Lent, you might ask? As a "lapsed" Catholic, I haven't been to Mass, for myself at least, since the day John Paul II died almost seven years ago. I've made a few obligatory exceptions for family gatherings such as weddings, funerals, a confirmation, and the Easter I spent with my very religious grandmother in her very religious town in Italy in 2008. Why start now?
This may be difficult to explain. Part of the reason is that I have a friend who's Muslim. Over the summer, when he was fasting during daylight hours for the whole month of Ramadan, I found it really inspiring. He said he didn't really mind fasting: he enjoyed it. Much like I enjoyed giving up Rigoletto for Lent in the eighth grade. And he also felt a spiritual benefit as a result of his fasting. Not unlike the Hindu concept of tapas, the divine heat that comes from meditation. It really made me feel good to see what my friend was engaged in and so deeply motivated by. So learning about another religion really made me appreciate the one I was raised with, and I want to recover just a little piece of it.
I reached a point a long time ago when I felt I could no longer turn to the religion I grew up with for answers to the big questions: Why am I here? What do I want out of life? Why do the good die young? What if there is no God or no afterlife? What if there is no bliss? I found that Catholicism just couldn't answer those questions for me anymore, nor could Christianity or Judaism. Nevertheless, in the wake of that religion I found a huge void. Functioning without that religion has been an incredibly thorny path. Perhaps a shaky path is a better metaphor because it has meant learning to stand and to walk without a means of support. A complete and all-sustaining means of support, by the way. But just because a child learns to walk by himself does not mean that he walks away from his father and mother forever. He still has a need for and a bond to what nurtured him.
While I find that I cannot truly practice Christianity or any other religion that I've come across, certain rituals, images, and moments within Catholicism have nevertheless left a very profound impression on me. While my own worldview is generally closer to that of Norse and even Greek mythology than to Judeo-Christian ethics, nothing has ever spoken to me so deeply as the Crucifixion does. Not Wagner's Wotan, not Odysseus, not even Bilbo or Frodo Baggins. I instantly identify with the silhouette of three crosses on Golgotha.
The Crucifixion symbolizes everything: the death of God, the universal suffering and sorrow of life, the destruction and rebirth of all life, all matter, all energy. It contains the message: "You must die to yourself to be reborn." Whatever it is you have that is you and only you: destroy it. Surrender your ego. Leave aside the "I" for the "All." You must sacrifice the thing you most care about and be reborn. If you don't give it willingly, it will be taken from you and perish anyway. It is the theme expressed in the Bonfire Song in Kurosawa's film Hidden Fortress. It is the recurring message of Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is the message of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It is a story told in all times and in all places and in all languages in a variety of images, be it Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Huitzilopochtli, and myriads more. In my particular case, this story was told to me in the form of the Passion and Death of Christ. It is a form which I recognize in my own life.
And isn't this the message of Lent? I know I've had to give up many of the people I've cared about over the years. And I had to give up the main structure of my life a few years ago. But in the end, mine was a story of renewal. And what I've sacrificed has led to my own rebirth. I can look at sacrifice and change with gratitude and humility. My entire view of life has changed. I can say with Nietzsche: "Yea and amen!" to everything.
So I'm observing at least one little portion of Lent this year. Because my life is in accord with its mystery. Because all life is the Via Dolorosa. Because my life is the Via Dolorosa. Because all life is the springtime born from the ashes of the dead. And I can still see it, even without a church.
So let's give up the tea! And let's welcome our own spiritual birth. Yea and amen!
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