Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

What Can We Give Up for Lent?

February 25, 2007

We de-commissioned a toy annually. Every Ash Wednesday, when we were kids (just after the Apostolic Era), we were instructed to choose a toy that we regularly played with and put it away in a closet until Easter. Trucks, balls, construction sets, and various stuffed animals were exiled over the years for those six weeks.

I’ve given up lots of different things over the years. As I get older, my Lenten sacrifices usually resemble a religious Weight Watchers program. That’s okay, though. There is a unity between body and soul; weight loss and spiritual progress are not incompatible.

In post-Vatican II years, sermons were given about “doing something positive” for Lent instead of concentrating solely on giving something up. That was a good corrective. Practicing something for six weeks may actually spark a habit or go a long way to building a virtue.

So now we have this dual approach to Lent: there is self-denial, but there is also self-improvement. Ultimately, we find out it is not an act of “self” but of grace from beyond ourselves. The annual question still, however, gets asked, “What am I giving up for Lent?” My wife and I are also posing the question to our daughters. So, beyond asking, “What am I giving up for Lent?” we’re asking “What are you giving up for Lent?” I’d like to throw another pronoun in there. In addition to “I” and “You”, I want to add “We”.

We. I don’t just mean my wife and me. I don’t mean only my wife and our children as the “We”. I also mean bigger “we’s,” something along the lines of local communities like churches or towns and cities, or maybe even larger communities like cultural and political communities or whatever passes for “the public” nowadays. I mean whatever “We” you belong to. What can WE give up for Lent?

How about giving up yelling about gay marriage? Locally, here in Rhode Island, the Attorney General ruled that RI agencies can recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts. An Ocean State uproar ensued, mimicking the circular debate that gains volume nationally whenever anyone who cares about same-sex marriage brings it to mind. Even the Roman Catholic bishop spoke up, taking to the airwaves to condemn the AG’’s pronouncement. Usually, it is people connected with religion who raise their voices opposing same-sex marriage. At this stage of my life, my reaction to the controversy is, “Would you please shut up?”

What is the big deal? I have to say that I don’t understand the emotional content of the argument. Opponents of same-sex marriage argue with a certain level of ferocity that indicates to me that there is more at stake for them than the publicly-expressed statements, the facts and figures, the philosophizing and theologizing, and all of the other objective aspects of the issue. Except, I can’t see exactly what is at stake. Will legally recognizing same-sex relationships damage Marriage and the Family in our society? Hardly. It’s hard to imagine how Marriage and the Family could be any more damaged than they already are in our society. Shouldn’t our efforts, legal and otherwise, be focused on repairing and strengthening relationships rather than pretending that a certain kind of relationship has no significance for us?

Relationships do matter for civic society after all. It makes a difference how business relationships are formed and are lived out: partner to partner, company to customer, executives to shareholders, and so forth. So, we bring them into the world of law and regulation. It matters how families live together: how children are brought into the world and cared for, how safe people are in their relationships, how secure and stable they are economically and otherwise. So, we bring them into the world of law and regulation. Women form romantic relationships with women and men with men, and they establish homes together and, sometimes, families with children. That is of consequence for our society. Is same-sex marriage “normal”? No, not statistically. Is same-sex marriage unhealthy? Not necessarily. Think of how many unhealthy man-woman relationships you know of and what you understand by “unhealthy.” Are same-sex marriages a threat to society? No, definitely not. So, please, how about we give up yapping about gay marriage for Lent?

One other suggestion. For Lent, can WE give up scoring political points when we discuss Iraq? People continue to die over there and it is very disturbing to see that some use the discussion of the war to take stabs at George Bush or to paint Democrats as cowards. It is disconcerting to see presidential hopefuls calibrate their statements about Iraq by popularity. As a people, we cannot even state what the problem is in Iraq – a problem that pre-dates the present Administration, a problem whose complexity lays open the temptation to simplistic analysis, a problem that will remain even if we started marching out tomorrow. Can we at least work together to do that – to describe the problem? If WE can do that, the solutions, while not easy to do, will be easier to see.

You can sense the difficulty with the WE. It is hard enough for an “I” to give up something for Lent. Jumping to a “We” makes all sorts of new demands to be successful. It demands a level of consciousness of the “We” being an entity; it demands an amount of respect and restraint that is hard to summon; it demands a degree of honest communication that is hard to reach; it demands a sense of community that is rarely admitted to in our country even though it does exist.

Maybe WE can reach for that this Lent: not so much actually giving something up but just admitting that we are part of a “We,” that we belong to something (many things) that are bigger than ourselves, and that these larger communities are capable of discussing and deciding and acting together for the common good even though it is extremely difficult.