Lent
Lent is, as described by Buechner, akin to tithing a year. 10% of a year is roughly 40 days. 40 is also a symbolic number to the Jews and early Christians in that it is the number of transfiguration. Moses was in Midian before going back to
Lent, then, is our time of transfiguration. It is a time to give something up. However, as Paul Tournier states in A Place for You, we need to have something to abdicate before abdication. That is to say, we need an identity to shed before we can shed the identity. Francis of Assisi was able to take the vow of poverty after living the life of the wealthy; Diogenes the Cynic was able to renounce his position only after acquiring the position. Lent must be the abdication of that which you have, in order to transform yourself into that which you desire. Thus, again as Tournier states it, the first move has been completed; a personage has been identified that we then want to shed.
The second stage that I see in Lent is the process of abdication. The shunning of one's former self insofar that they will transform. However, we must ask ourselves what it is that we are trying to transform. If we are attempting to abdicate our Person, then we are in for a world of hurt. We are not to shed that which we are; we are to shed that which we do. The shame as I see it in modern man is that he confuses that which he does or has done with his Person. I know that I myself have fallen guilty to this, but alas I have shed the shackles (yes, I use the word shackles) of the doctrine of inherent sin. We are not sinful; we are prone to sin. Lent, then, or at least the second movement - that is, abdication - is the recognition of the separateness between us and sin. The transformation that arises from abdication is the realization that we are once again able to view ourselves as useful tools of God. And once the second movement - that is, away - has taken place and we have transitioned, we are then required to take a third movement: reincorporation.
This third movement is the return to our lives, or at least the other 90% of our year, anew: free from our previous personage. However, this is not to say that we are to be personage-less, and this is where I feel the Orthodox or Catholic traditions of Lent is more true to life. To explain this, I must first define one of the most evident of schisms between the Catholic and the Protestant movements: the lack of symbols in worship. Symbols are designed to help us, to aid us, they are not to be worshiped, but rather worship through. The Protestant movement removed all symbols from the church, and, arguably, symbolically calls the person to remove symbols from themselves. That is, I mean to say that Protestant man has a belief that he must attempt to live a personage-less life, which we are not able to do. Many Protestants don't even celebrate Lent as it is an Orthodox and Catholic symbol of faith. Protestant man has taken the abdication of symbols to far and lives a torn life: a life that says he is not to live within roles. The paradoxical nature of this is that Protestant churches have high rates of shame-based, institutionalized role-players who have been told for far too long that they are not to play roles; that is, they have not been able to accept a personage, and thus they attempt to abdicate that which they do not have. Also, in the Orthodox and Catholic faiths the practice of Lent is the acquisition of a new practice that they wish to incorporate into their lives. They symbolic meaning of this is that they have a new place to live, as Tournier would say, they have a new personage; and identity.
Lent, the transfiguration of man, is a rite of passage, and in a rite-less society, we need something to hold to. We need rituals; we need symbols; we need rites in order to form for ourselves a place. A place to live.
posted by Thinker Joe | 12:31 PM
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