Ash Friday

Well, I missed Ash Wednesday. I'm not Catholic, so it's not a huge travesty for me... I just didn't realize how out of touch I was! I usually at least NOTICE we're coming into Lent.

So, I don't always give something up for Lent- I don't always make New Year's resolutions either. In fact, I'm very bad at both. Probably stems from commitment issues. Anyway, I know I'm not going to be able to keep them up, so I don't make them. But every once in a while I'll do something for Lent- usually when I was a kid I gave up chocolate or dessert in anticipation of the gargantuan sugar fest that the Easter basket was. Very holy. Very memorable was the year that I made a New Year's resolution to not eat any deep-fried foods (a major dietary staple in the midwest, especially considering I was living off of the college cafeteria at the time) and then topped it off with a Lenten deprivation of all things dessert-like. I actually did keep both of those resolutions, but it was with much whining and pouting and fudging the edges. (Since I didn't deep-fry the Ore-Idas myself, surely I can eat those "baked" french fries, yes?) Incidentally, on January 1st following the no-fry year, I celebrated my oil chastity by trying a good ol' Long John Silver's dinner. Let me tell you how NOT to reintroduce trans fats into your system. I celebrated January 2 of the same year nursing my offended stomach.

But I digress. (Always.) So, the reason I would choose to give up or change something during the Lent season was not so much as to better myself, but to give myself the more-oft-than-not reminder of what season we were celebrating. Often this turned into something whiny- such as, "I really want that piece of chocolate. I really want that chocolate. How bad would it be if I ate that piece of chocolate? Well, I bet Jesus would have really liked a piece of chocolate while he was hanging on the cross, WOULDN'T HE?!?" And thus, the chocolate was avoided and I was reminded (albeit rather grumpily) of the reason for the season. Effective.

This year I decided to celebrate the Lenten season with the not so traditional but much more effective personal betterment route. I came upon this last Sunday, when I was lifting a piece of heavy equipment onto a rack at church, and upon heaving realized just how much heavier it was than I supposed it to be. Some choice words came to mind, and started to slip out, then I realized the person on the other end of the equipment was actually the pastor, I realized, "I can't say that in front of him!" and what came out was some silly hybrid-ish multi-syllabic but definitely less than holy colorful metaphor. We all laughed about it, but I realized with quite a bit of shame that the only thing that cleaned up my language to the degree I censored it was the sight of one of those Men of God who is no doubt walking around with a judgment stick, ready to smack my tongue and order me ten Hail Marys for my blasphemy.

Well, this is no more true than the idea that I am going to go to hell for saying, well, hell. But it did make me realize that I tend to be loose with my lips. I've never had a really foul mouth (except for those couple years in high school) and I've always been careful with the really bad words. But occasionally, as is my Amish wont, I will toss out something especially descriptive, especially for the sake of a good punch line. And I will use those "fake" cuss words, as though cursing in a different language makes the purpose any less meaningful. And I especially remember the time where one of the origins of my absolute favorite descriptor, "bloody," was explained to me, and I was horrified that I had been tossing this word around so casually. I really thought it was an innocent word. But it was a pretty bad word, apparently, and that made me start thinking about all my words: is "holy cow" really so safe? Am I offending the Hindus? Should I no longer censor my four letter expressions into "curses! curses upon you!"? I mean... actually, that's pretty mean.

So for the next six weeks, I'm going to watch my mouth. If you're around me, this will probably result in quite a few sudden stops in speech, some redder-than-normal cheeks, and the occasional very strange proclamation, such as, "oh, fish bones and potato peels!" (But even that- am I offending fishermen? Gardeners? Mulch-mongers?) So I don't think I'll be a saint or anything... but I'm going to see what my language is like if I endeavor to remove any and all forms of, shall we say, cursing, and set my sights on a higher goal- using language that is safely non-offensive to even the most foreign two-year-old who may happen to be listening to me. Because they're always listening.

This won't make me more holy, and may not even change me that much (I am famous for fudging the lines- remember the Ore-Idas), but I do know that every time I am seeking the perfect phrase to express my emotions, I will give pause to remember that it's Lent, and give thanks to the One who expanded my vocabulary for me. And that whole salvation thing, that's important too.

Feel free to call me on it when you hear me saying something that you think breaks the rules.

Oh, and 10 points to the first one to name that reference from paragraph four.