That Little Piece of Sausage

Blue eyed cutie asked me a good question yesterday. And I've been thinking about how to explain myself and the answer to the question ever since.

I'm a Catholic. Which means, during lent, it's no meat on Fridays. At least for me. And the question asked of me: Why even bother? It's a good question and it's got my mind stirring a bit. But, here's how I break it down, to the simplest common denominator.

I do it because I want to. I do it because I love my faith in God. I haven't been good about going to mass for a while now, mostly because the priest at my church is from Africa... and honestly, I can't understand a word he says during his homilies. It's not that I think the homilies are even the reason to go to church but if I can't understand what you're saying because your accent is so thick, I can't fully participate and I lose interest. I just end up feeling like I'm putting in my time, getting the receipt at the end (the bulletin), and walking out of the building feeling no more enriched than I had when I walked in.

The other reason, I simply don't make time for it anymore. Which may not be ok but it's the truth. Partially because I work all these crazy hours and partially because I love to sleep when I get the chance. There's no way I'm going to be a good person or Christian if I'm cranky. Trust me on this. It's not a pretty sight.

So, why would I bother to hold onto this one tradition?

Because it reminds me of that part of myself. The spiritual side that I simply don't attend to as often as I'd like. I'm not concerned about going to hell for eating that little nibble of sausage that just happened to be on my side of the pizza yesterday. And I don't feel that I am being forced into the practice. Lord knows I spent years not giving a crap about it. I've made the conscience choice to do this. I have free will to do as I please and the common sense to realize that my life is not going to be based on something as silly as not chowing down on a burger on a few particular days.

Still, I'm happy to do it. Perfectly happy to demonstrate (mostly to myself) my love for God in some simple and yet active way. For those people that we love here on Earth, we show them we love them in all sorts of ways and it's usually a nice feeling to love someone. (Or at least it should be.) And when they know they're loved by you, it's just all the better. Not that God doesn't know already, me not eating meat is not "proving" anything. It's just showing something. Just like a real kiss on the cheek. Simple as that.