What Lent means to me

You may notice something very different about this blog for the next 40 days. That’s because it’s Lent and according to the boy band of the era, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus Christ spent 40 days of fasting in the desert before he began his public ministry, whatever that is. To be honest, the desert doesn’t seem to be an ideal place to fast for nearly six weeks, particularly when you’ve got Satan tempting you with Sausage and Egg McMuffins in the morning and fish and chips in the evening, but I suppose things were a bit different in the time before Deliveroo and Just Eat. I must admit if I was the son of God and even God himself – it’s so hard to tell who is who in the bible – I suppose I might want to give a lead to my gullible followers. But if, like Jesus God, I never actually existed, why would I bother?

Having carried out some in-depth research (Google), I now learn that there are three ‘pillars’ of Lent. They are:

1. Fasting
2. Praying
3. Almsgiving

Of the three, Almsgiving seems to be the most worthwhile. It is essentially well-off people giving stuff to very poor people and arguably the result of 2 not working, which of course it doesn’t (although a mate of mine did pray that Liverpool would beat Chelsea on penalties and that seemed to work. Maybe Jesus God isn’t happy with Chelsea’s owner?). And there’s something else about all this Almsgiving: charity only exists because we as a society deem certain things as far too unimportant to pay for collectively, as a society. Include in the category named ‘Unimportant’ cancer research, starving families, lonely old people and at least a million other well-deserving causes which we deem to be ill-deserving. But don’t worry: if we make a charitable donation, Jesus God will reward us with a business class seat in Heaven once our time is up. Or will he? read on.

At least if we follow Lent, it will all be over in 40 days when we can celebrate the resurrection of Jesus God following his crucifixion and party like it’s C 30 AD and fill ourselves with chocolate eggs, because it’s what HE would have wanted.

Anyway, searching suggestions as to what to give up for Lent, I visited a somewhat barking website called Holy Mess, run by a woman called Sara whose passion is – and I am not making this up – faith and weight loss, in that order. These are her suggestions as to what to give up:

1. Meat
2. Fast food
3. TV viewing
4. Elevators
5. Swearing
6. Sugar
7. Social Media
8. Shopping
9. Snooze Button
10. Texting
11. Coffee
12. Caffeine
13. Make-Up
14. Warm Showers
15. Debt
16. French Fries
17. Cell phone
18. Gossip
19. Working overtime
20. White lies
21. Last bite
22. Junk food
23. Complaining
24. Music in the car
25. Chocolate
26. Snacking
27. Being late
28. Arguments
29. Taking credit
30. Hurtful words
31. Movies
32. Artificial sweeteners
33. Bragging
34. Going first
35. Plastic bags
36. Bottled water
37. Clutter
38. Starbucks
39. Cookies
40. Candy
41. E-mail
42. Holding grudges
43. Road rage
44. Iphone apps
45. The last word
46. Procrastination
47. Alcohol
48. Sarcasm
49. Smoking
50. Soda

Hmm. A few fillers in that list – I am not sure how listening to music in the car will help, although maybe Jesus God wasn’t a great DAB man back in the day – but it’s a start. I think today, I’ll start with sarcasm.

Anyway, that’s Lent for you. Sara does point out that: “It is important to note that fasting or other traditions do not earn you extra blessings from God,” which I’d always thought why the devout do anything, but it turns out you get no additional Brownie points for giving up “road rage” or “being late”. So, what’s the actual point? Well, there is no actual point. But as the great comedian Dave Allen pointed out at the end of every show: “May your God go with you.” A very good catchphrase from an atheist, don’t you think?