Difficulty is created in avoiding the holidays. I've tried it. Years ago, I took on a somewhat sarcastic approach to Lent, but it was also a very spiritual one. After the dissolution of my first marraige and in the midst of intense counseling to regain my self-worth, I decided to give up meat for Lent.
The idea of doing this was centered around the exploitation of women. It all fit together in my complex mind. Where does exploitation stop? If men can justify the way they treat women, does that have something to do with our justifying eating meat, or even plants? It was a particularly spiritual time for me. It was sarcastic because I don't, and have never prior, cognitively observed Lent in any meaningful way. Lent was a convenient 6 weeks at an opportune time for me to delve more deeply and to concentrate on mulling over this new-found focus. Most Christians would understand without too much questioning, if I told them I had given up meat for Lent; even fish. Except Fran Taber, and other Quakers - they of course raised an eyebrow.
I came out of this time renewed. I slowly worked with my parents to take on the management of my father's family homestead so they could move to a retirement home, and embarked upon a somewhat idealistic and inexperienced path of attempting to raise at least some of my own food, including milk, eggs and meat.
After this entire spiritual process, the subject of raising my own meat comes up occasionally among coworkers in particular, in conversation. They most often seek to end the conversation with the statement, "Well, I couldn't eat something I raised." In the years preceding these inevitable conversations, I have learned to take note of who brings in carry-out or fast food from where, to prepare myself for this ultimate statement. And I never let them off the hook. While I understand the apathy of the American public, I will not accept, in my attempt to be true to my own convictions, a statement from a person who eats at McDonalds, that they couldn't eat an animal they had raised. If they must hold me accountable to ease their apathetic conscience, they too also must be held accountable.
In following years, I chose to give up New Years Resolutions, and to give up nontraditional things for Lent. Two years in a row, I gave up elevators. I work on the 7th floor of a hospital 4 days per week, so this was a significant sacrifice. I've NEVER given up chocolate, and don't think I ever will.
This year, I began Lent early. I devoted myself to an 18 week training program for a half marathon. Ash Wednesday came and left after I had begun, and so will Easter. I saw the ash on my husband's forehead when he came home from his Presbyterian church. There was a woman walking through the hospital with ash on her head. It reminded me of the year one of my coworkers took some dirt off her tire before coming in from the parking ramps and did her deed in her rearview mirror. I might not go quite that far.
My occupation these past 3 years has centered around taking care of people having cardiac events. My trips through the Burger King drive through have lessened. My apathy in worrying about what I eat has become uncomfortable. I still eat meat, but I make different choices about what meat I eat.
I'm not planning on winning the half marathon; not even close. The goal for me is to make it to the end of 13 miles with an average pace of faster than 18 miles per 15 minutes, so I don't get pushed onto the sidewalk. I'm 6 weeks in, and have just met that pace last week. I'd also like to be able to say I ran in a half marathon; maybe even a whole marathon someday. The choice didn't have anything to do with Lent. It had more to do with the fact that 4 of my girl cousins have already done this, and I felt left out and wanted to join them this year. And it had to do with my weight and my health. As people at work talk about the health improvements they are making for Lent, I have been feeling rather Quakerly in beginning in January and ending in May - if I do end it. I've come to like running. I'm doing a mega-Lent, at thrice the time period.
1 comment:
Well, I could never eat something I raised, but that's because I gave up meat for good around twenty years ago, no matter who raised it.
It's strange how people maintain this odd hypocrisy that makes them squeamish about acknowledging the truth about what they kill. To my way of thinking, it's exactly the same hypocrisy that makes lethal injection an acceptable form of execution, among people for whom "messier" ways of administering death are unacceptable. Killing someone with barbiturates makes them just as dead as the electric chair. We're not doing them any favors by doing it with a needle instead of a rope.
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