A tradition practiced in my family, is Lent! I hear the same old message from the pulpit, and recognize why so many Catholics can identify as non-practicing. Lent is a time for sacrifice and alms, this is what the clergy asks of us. Unfortunately I gotta say check yo self before you wreck yo self. Who am I to question, I am only laity. Well I have a sermon. Lent for me is being loved, a selfish desire for God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
So the ritual is to give one thing up for 40 days out from Easter, so its absence will remind me of Christ. This is an individual quest for the divine. What I hear is, find one thing in my life that is distracting me from acknowledging God. What is so special about a 40 day period? My answer is that even Jesus, the incarnate, might have been overstimulated. Why else would he choose to enter the desert. What better place to eliminate distraction than the desert.
As I finish up a little research on Ayn Rand, she reminds me of how foolish the followers of Jesus are. We are irrational, as she would call us. She might even
call us enslaved and victims of communism. I think she would feel a need to educate us and explain to us how valuable our lives could be, if we only recognized our own desires. I would say, "Mrs. Rand, might I call you Dr. Rand, altruism is what I believe it to be, and if it offends you, please forgive me." If serving the less fortunate frustrates you, I apologize, I will try and do it where you don't have to see it or pay for it. Sorry you see me as a corrupt person, and belonging to a corrupt set of people. I hope you will see that I fear your ambitions, and love my hope. If believing in the unprovable is foolish than cast me away with the other fools. I admire your desire for rational. So in honor of you and my Lenten tradition I will do my best to find my own deserts to walk in. With compassion for Ayn Rand I will think freely and rationally about scripture, carving my own understanding of what it means to follow Christ, building an internal industry of faith, aspiring to be as industrial as her fictitious invention John Galt.Irrationally in love with forgiveness, empathy, grace, suffering, and sacrifice
I feel more understanding of how I am an immigrant soul wondering in this human experience