I always get excited when the calendar is about to turn March because it means Lent is around the corner. Lent is one of those religious practices that I love and look forward to every year. My fascination comes from the fact that I have always viewed Lent as a wish granting practice. If you have spent enough time with me, you will know that I love to wish every time my eyes catch the clock on 11:11 and I believe in those wishes. I do. That is what Lent is for me except that it comes once a year making it all the more special and let’s not forget that it ends in Easter celebration. Lent is a time of spiritual adventure, meditation, and a time to extend one's own humanity to others by sharing and caring as we should.
Last year, Lent took an even deeper meaning for me. For the first time, I decided to go beyond my comfort zone and give up something that I absolutely love besides not eating meat on Wednesday and Friday. I gave up pork. I love bacon and my college had/has bacon Friday for breakfast. I love bacon Friday and I go through the week with the expectation of bacon Friday. The idea of giving up pork might seem simple to many but it isn’t for me because I eat pork constituents on a daily basis. All sorts of food have pork, including sausage and ham. Since I had a meal plan and dined at the school’s dinning hall, I didn’t want to buy myself beef sausage, turkey ham, or turkey bacon and also I didn’t want to substitute. I wanted to wholly give up all these wonderful things that I loved to eat for 40 days and feel the spirit of Lent present with me everytime I resist the temptation.
For 39 days, I didn’t eat pork. I will like to reiterate that it means NO BACON, no ribs, no sausages and no ham. It is 39 days because as the weeks went by, there was one day that my acquired mother gave me a ham sandwich. I ate it and totally forgot that it was pork until couple days later. I was a bit disappointed but glad that I resisted my favorite of all bacon and sausage for 40 days. That incident in itself taught me self forgiveness which I was struggling with. The resistance to the temptation to eat pork also taught me self control, something that I have lost my junior year when it comes to food. I was battling with a food fascination as coping mechanism and I was trapped in that train with no way out. I didn’t have health insurance and I was afraid of the awful things I was doing to my body.
After Lent, I was more in control of what I was eating, and stopped eating when I was no longer hunger. The catholic school that I attended always stressed the fact that Lent is a time to avoid excess; to eat just enough because what you have in excess others might not even have at all. I didn’t know that Lent, last year, would mark a healing period for me. That healing was physical, emotional as well as spiritual. I did not intend such a miracle when I decided to give up pork for forty days! It was just pork but yes, it changed my life.
I decided to share this because Lent is coming again and I am eager to celebrate this time in communion with million other people in the world. Even though it is a religious practice in essence, I think anybody who wants to, can participate in Lent along with the rest of us. I encourage anybody that isn’t familiar with Lent to venture in because this year of service might just be the year to try it.
Sandra
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