Lenten Observations

Robert's 40/400 pledge

Well, as you might guess from both headline and photo, I have a few things on my mind. The headline is not exactly a pun, but it is a play on words. It’s late in the evening of Ash Wednesday as I write these words. This is the official beginning of the 40-day period of Lent. When Catholics (and several other Christian denominations) consider the phrase “Lenten” observation, its in the context of what should be surrendered or put aside for the next 40 days to honor Christ’s 40 days of fasting and prayer in the desert.

Of course, the headline of this particular post has more meaning than just the notion of how I will theologically observe Lent. Rather I am making observations about the season and the broader concept of abstention and fasting that has taken on a broader context in popular culture. In Lent, the practice calls us to abstain from activities and habits that may have conceivably evolved/devolved into addictions, obsessions, onerous distractions.
A fast or abstemious observation gives us an opportunity to show that we can control the desires and temptations of our physical body.

What we opt to refrain mostly tend to be physical things — including types of food and drink. Some people will give up eating meat at all for the 40 days (not just on Friday as Catholic teachings direct). Others might choose to give up alcohol. In recent years, I’ve encountered a few who withdraw from social media (decidedly addictive) — particularly Facebook, TikTok, X-Twitter.

It could be things material and physical that we enjoy, but feel that we enjoy them to such a degree that by putting them aside, we might allow space for reflection, which, in turn might open ourselves for mental and spiritual renewal of sorts.

There are any number of things that be put to the side. However, Catholic Church teaching also informs us that this 40 day period doesn’t have to be just a fast. Rather than just giving up something, one might opt for a pro-active almsgiving: More prayer, more charitable donations or service. Anything that could entail contributing more to one’s fellows or taking on an extra responsibility, and in terms of focusing our strengths, our responsibilities, our creative talents in a way that perhaps has fallen by the wayside in recent months or years. By picking them up and pledging our extra energy towards that endeavor, Lent inspires us to do more than just deny ourselves, in favor of giving greater glory to Christ by adding something.

I personally have decided to go a little bit further than in past Lents. This January, I participated in Dry January, giving up alcohol for the month. It was a first time for me — though was hardly a great sacrifice. “Thanks” to an accident of my upbringing, I don’t have an alcohol problem per se. God knows (yes, He does), other addictions and obsessions need to be addressed and perhaps through prayer they’ll be lifted or alleviated, but alcohol thankfully is not one of them. Growing up in a household with an alcoholic parent, that experience stayed with me through my entire life — enough to guide me to only drinking responsibly. That said, it was a good moment in January to say let’s do this and go without booze.

Just opting to do that caused me to consider the generational moment in which we currently reside. Several studies indicate that Gen Z has put aside alcohol in contrast to their predecessors; the market has responded by various nonalcoholic bars opening up and “mocktails” exploding; with fewer people drinking beer companies have been forced to produce Heineken 0, Stella 0, Guinness zero, etc. This capitalist reaction to generational changes in behavior causes another point.

What else is Dry January other than a 30-day observation of what occurs during Lent? After all, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (thus the a-forehead-ed schmutz, as one of my Jewish brethren might put it). It’s the day after Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras in New Orleans of course) and it’s an understanding of oh we’re having a big party before some abstention and reflection in the period leading up to Easter. During Dry January, we abstain after the holiday season, including Thanksgiving, into Christmas and, especially, New Year’s Eve, we’ve had six weeks of engorging ourselves, on food, drink, gifts and more. All this kind of partying, a significant segment of the public were drawn to the notion of Dry January. Folks were already starting a new year and offering up resolutions, so an alcohol “fasting” period arose organically (Dry January reportedly launched little more than a decade or so in the UK, before, quickly migrating across the pond).

In a similar, if slightly more profane manner, there’s a less polite-company secular “fasting” period in the latter part of the year. Again emerging organically — fueled partly by social media like Reddit — there is, ahem, No Nut November. The idea here is to encourage men, predominantly young single men to pledge to not, “self-pollute” as it was once referred to in Catholic school. They swear an oath to, in Seinfeld language, to remain masters of their domain during November (there is some debate as to whether only solo release or conjugal assignations are also to be to

not much data on how much crossover there is between this effort in self-denial and the “Mo-vember” movement of men growing mustaches to draw attention to men’s health. One reason it emerged was, even young men recognized, we live in a popular culture drenched in sexual imagery, with pornographic and porn-adjacent ubiquity, this was the reaction. Precise numbers of who opts to indulge (or “not indulge”) in NNN, but the Reddit page boasts more than 150,000 globally. Again this is another Gen Z inspired trend.

Which brings us back to Lent, the old school (“classic”) seasonal period of reflection and abstention. You add these two other organically inspired moments of reflection and self-control, a picture emerges of a generation deciding that surrendering to various temptations is not necessarily a good productive thing. When different iterations of that message start popping up in three discrete parts of the year, perhaps a counterculture is growing within society at large — one based on reflection, abstention, forbearance, etc. in the face of Madison Ave. messages, Hollywood imagery and Silicon Alley and logorithms that have overwhelmed our collective spirits. Take a pause. A one month pause here for one thing. Another one-month pause over here. And, hey, let’s go real traditional and embrace that old-school classic” 40-day pause over here? At least that one, you get to choose your own adventure.

Or non-adventure.

When I perform stand-up comedy, I identify as a Catholic (in a list of semi-contradictory attributes). But I confess to being a bad Catholic. I don’t go to Mass every Sunday as I should, but I do notice things: Once upon a time, the Catholic Church was one of the most culturally significant religious institution in the world. That fell by the wayside over the decades, due to some catastrophic self-inflicted errors, moral missteps and broader global shifts. Yet, old customs still manage to break through, leak into the secular culture and morph into forms that echo if not fully reflect their origins.

We are in a broader generational moment where disparate parts of society opt to take a minute and see what else is out there. How much more might one absorb physically and mentally without that beer, glass of wine or spirits one or two times a week? What else might one be doing if I’m abstaining from swiping left or swiping right — turning other people into commodities? Instead, take a break and perhaps talk to people face-to-face?

That’s Robert’s Lenten Observation on this day of Wednesday March 5, 2025.

My broad observation is going to be about reflection — look at the various types of behaviors that could do with a tune-up (or perhaps a tune-out is more accurate). But my specific intention and goodness — hope I can maintain it — is to reverse the fallow period of the last four or five months in this space. I allowed the overwhelming nature of world events crushing down on our country and our culture and caused me to doubt my ability to respond. In that failure, I fell short of the duty that I had to you — my readers — to try to carve out some sanity (or even light humor) in a world going mad and dark. And so blocked myself. Never a good thing.

We owe it to ourselves to be ourselves and to share of ourselves, listen to others and to use our voice, use our platform if we have one. Thankfully I do have one. It’s a small one. It’s not one million or so, but I’ve got a few people out there who are interested in some of the things that I think and say.

To make it up to them — and to make it up to myself — my “contributory” offering will be to write a post here, everyday for the 40 days. It will be a minimum of 400 words on something: Politics, of course (national and local — no matter how draining it has been over the last several weeks); popular culture, sports, etc.

Obviously, this introductory post (following an emotionally necessary winter pause) is well above that. The next will be considerably shorter (he says to himself).

But that’s still a start.

Happy Lent.