Mardi Gras

I went to bed Thursday night worried I would not wake up in the morning in time for class. I was right. "$&!+," I yelled as I rolled out of bed, threw on tennis shoes, and ran to class. I had just slept through an exam in my critical issues class and was eight minutes late for a ten-minute quiz in organic chemistry. While my exclamation was not exactly grateful, it was an expression of my exact response at the moment when I woke up and realized what time it was. I took the quiz in the two remaining minutes, and received the lowest grade in the class. It was the worst beginning to a weekend I have ever experienced.

Sitting here eating a piece of king cake, I am reflecting on last Friday, and thinking about Mardi Gras, my second favorite holiday of the year. I often forget about the church season that follows Mardi Gras. I think about parades, king cakes, beads, masks, feathers — rarely do I think "Lent." But as I contemplate the meld of purple, green, and gold sprinkles melting in my mouth, I am thinking about the season of Lent and how it could possibly relate to cinnamon cake. You eat cake during celebrations and parties. Mardi Gras is a time for celebration… but what about Lent?

Mardi Gras celebrates the beginning of Lent by allowing us to fill ourselves with whatever we are giving up during Lent. (In my case, I have had six cups of coffee so far today.) I understand having a day to celebrate what we will be sacrificing for the next 46 days. However, celebrating the actual 46 days of sacrifice sometimes seems strange to me. Why celebrate a time when we are craving coffee, meat, chocolate, plastic ware, or whatever else we have forfeited? Lent is simply a time of waiting. Waiting for that next cup of coffee, for the day we can celebrate coffee plants — waiting for Easter. But I think Lent can be more than just the padding between celebrations.

In Spanish, the verb esperar is used to mean "to wait." However, esperar also means "to hope." I think that too often we get caught in the mindset of "waiting." We wait for class to end. We wait for work to be over. We wait for dinner to be ready. We wait for our car to get an oil change. We wait for a new book to come out. We wait for the sales to start. We wait, we wait, and we wait.

On Friday, I waited for my alarm to go off. I waited for my exam and my quiz to be over. I waited for lunch, which meant that the weekend was starting. But what if I had hoped instead? What if I had hoped that I would wake up on time? What if I had hoped that my quiz would be better? Or that my weekend was close at hand? I don't usually like playing the "what if…" game, but my day would have been much smoother — and my language more graceful — if I had hoped for better results rather than wait for the disappointment. The same idea applies to Lent. Too often we are caught waiting for something to happen, stuck in a suspension between celebrations. Hope is a time for rejoicing, so let's make Lent a celebration.