Diary: A Different Lent

[degringolade]

 

Can’t go wrong with dandelions

 

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I buy my meat at a place called US Chef’s Store.  Cheaper there because they sell meat in bulk (≅15-20 lbs) which I break down and stick in the freezer.  The “bulk price” is usually much lower than the same cuts at the grocery store (sometimes 50% most of the time ≅25%).  You might be wondering why I am sharing this, but bear with me here.  They send me an email once a week telling me their specials.  Today’s ad touted spice mixes for foods made during Lent.

This got me a’ thinking.

I actually might wander over to the Catholic Church about a quarter mile from my house and get an ashen cross smeared on my head.  Oh, don’t worry, I am not going to become a minion, but I am thinking that the actual process of committing to a forty day period of serious diet compromise and meditation might not do me any harm at all. 

Now I am thinking about doing this for a couple of different reasons.  Ashamedly, I think that doing this is a reasonably effective way of losing the weight I put on during the secular holiday of excess known as the super bowl (my son did a most excellent brisket and I definitely overindulged.  His long-time buddy Griffin also makes the most memorable jalapeno poppers I have ever had).

But mostly this is a chance of maintaining an outside chance of trying to tie together a mind-body problem that has gone a bit astray of late.    My buddy M has gotten me a’ pondering the nature of the mind and consciousness lately and I am getting intrigued by where the process is leading me.  My early education by great priests (there are such things) and great nuns has also given me the possibility that the things that I am pondering might just include the chance that there is such a thing as a soul.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the actions of my body here on good old planet earth will be judged by a greater being and I will go through some odd sorting-hat kind of ceremony when I finally kick the bucket, but what I will consider is the possibility that along with a mind and a consciousness, there is a soul that must be taken into account.

I can’t posit, even for a moment, that this exercise will result in some kind of epiphany but I think that it won’t hurt a damn bit and might even do me some good.

Comments

Gershwin

[(Anonymous)]

You have excellent taste in music.
valeris