Happy Mardi Gras!  Fat Tuesday has a long tradition that began in the Middle Ages when the authority of the Church ruled.  During Lent, there were strict rules that forbade the production or consumption of things like sausages and sweets, and butter! (Sad, I know!)

The Church no longer regulates diets by law, but Lent is still associated with ‘giving something up,’ and that something is often chocolate or alcohol or tobacco, etc.  (One could argue that a lot of “Lenten discipline” is really dieting by another name, but I will say no more.) 

Since there is a season of deprivation ahead, the day before Lent was a time to indulge and a day to use up all the things in the pantry which would be forbidden in Lent.  That’s how Mardi Gras came to be associated with excessive consumption.  The heyday in New Orleans and Rio are the extreme secular versions.

Lent begins with dust and ashes.  “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  Mortality will make no exceptions for you.  How we react to that reality has spiritual meaning.  Are we anxious and fearful about all the things we will never get to do?  Are we angry that we are not going to last forever?  Are we grateful for all there is?

Christians have wisely alternated between fast and feast.  We celebrate every gift of life, but we don’t allow ourselves to be so attached to anything in creation that it rivals our love for the Creator.  It is good, I think, to give up something in Lent.  It’s good for us to have a craving, an emptiness that reminds us physically of our need spiritually for that which only God can give.

I will leave you with a poem — Otherwise, by Jane Kenyon.  To me, it is a perfect Fat Tuesday poem, preparing us for Ash Wednesday which is coming for all of us.

I got out of bed on two strong legs.
It might have been otherwise.
I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. 
It might have been otherwise.
All morning I did the work I love.
At noon I lay down with my mate. 
It might have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. 
It might have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.

Today is Fat Tuesday, a time of abundance, but it can’t last.  In Lent we practice how to love that which cannot last while trusting in that which cannot end.

Prayer: Merciful God, grant that we might cherish all that fills us with joy on Fat Tuesday — however long it lasts.  As we walk through Lent, grant us a holy hunger for more of you so that we might learn to loosen our grasp on all that is passing to dust and ashes.  Amen. *“Let the good times roll,” the Cajun motto for Mardi Gras