A Game of Sacrifice

I don't get Lent.

 word cloud of Lenten sacrifices

Now, before some well meaning individual tries to explain it to me, let me clarify; I know what Lent is.  I'm fully educated in the theological significance of the forty days, as well as the reasoning behind the fasting, the penance, and the sacrifice.

I know what Lent is.  I just don't get it.

Here's the thing.  I've been surrounded, my whole life, by people who are deprived.  I'm not talking about someone who missed their chance to get a pumpkin spice latte this fall.  Far be it from me to hate on coffee, I just want to clarify that I'm not using that term casually.  When I say deprived, I do not mean they haven't had chocolate in a week, or that the store is out of their favorite brand of bath soap.

I'm talking about people who don't have homes.  People who don't have a place to clean their bodies.  People who don't have basic health care, not even Tylenol for their fevers.

 These people.

I am talking about the 795 million people who go to sleep at night with their insides gnawing at them, because they don't have enough to eat.

So I don't get Lent.  I see people giving up chocolate, or Starbucks, or swearing for forty days, and I fail to see the point.  Maybe, if they took their coffee money and donated it to the World Hunger Foundation, maybe that would mean something to me.  Maybe, if they tried to live on $2 a day, and came away from the experience with the determination to change the world so that no one ever had to live on $2 a day ever again, maybe then I would appreciate the season.  Maybe if they gave up swearing and instead filled their mouths with words of solidarity, and revolution, and commitment.  Maybe then I would get it.

Lenten Sacrifices: Current Top Ten List

Instead I see nothing but the privilege of having so much that you have something to give up.  I see nothing but wealthy people playing a game of deprivation, giggling about how awful it's going to be to go without wine for six weeks.  I see them using it as the jump start for their diet, or their exercise plan, or whatever other personal improvement project they're working on.  I see yet another example of the wealthy of the world skating atop the misery that supports their self-involved lifestyle, turning even their moments of deprivation into a kind of party.

 These kids are hauling water to wash in.

That little dude is six.

But it's cute that you gave up bar hopping for Lent.

This may sound like a harsh critique to some, but I cannot apologize for it.  I have recently been reminded of the stark difference between this middle class life that I lead, and the lives of over 70% of the world's population.  It is unconscionable, and this game of sacrifice merely highlights it.

Besides.  I gave up my internal filter for Lent.