The best thing about Valentine’s Day is the day after Valentine’s Day. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good greeting card holiday. (Do people even send greeting cards anymore?) And it’s not like one is enough for honoring love. I grew up in the Midwest where we have “Sweetest Day” – literally, a Valentine’s Day in October. No reason. Just because. But the ubiquitous nature of Valentine’s Day is a gift to all of us, because chocolate goes on sale the day after Valentine’s Day. And this year, the liturgical season of Lent begins on Valentine’s Day and if you “give up chocolate for Lent,” you’re going to miss this good-priced chocolate.
If you grew up in a liturgical Christian tradition (like Catholicism and Episcopalians, for example), then you probably heard about people giving up chocolate for Lent. The idea behind giving up a bad habit is to help people to cultivate discipline. That if we go without something, when we return to it, we will have sense of moderation. Or maybe we won’t return at all.
I’m not sure what giving up candy and chocolate has to do with God.
The root word of discipline, is “disciple” or student. Discipline is about teaching and learning, not necessarily about denial.
I’m all for eschewing bad habits, but I love learning new things. There are all types of ways to learn more about ourselves, to learn about God and to develop our spiritualities.
There’s nothing magical about Lent. It’s just a 40-day period before celebrating some good news about the relationship between God and humanity. It’s a great time to cultivate a new spiritual discipline – those small and big things we do to focus more on our relationship with God.
But maybe life is lifing all over you. I mean, have you looked around in this world lately? People and institutions and countries are out here completely trippin’. And many of us are being bombarded with hard images of it all. And we have been for months. And so (1) you might need a little chocolate to keep going, and (2) you might be looking for a way to think about God that is honest about the weight, sadness and grief of it all.
Dr. Monica
