By Louise Mathews
After my time living in New York City, I did a complete 180 and moved to Purley, N.C., where my then-husband’s family owned a gentleman’s farm. We called it that because none of us did any actual farming.
Most of the 100 acres were in beautiful mature hardwoods and hay fields that were leased to a neighboring cattle farmer. We had extensive vegetable gardens and kept chickens, so I learned a little bit about life on the land. Late winter was the time for preparing the gardens for spring planting.
As I observed the wonderment of seasons in the Piedmont, the cycles of growth and decay, I reflected one year on why Lent occurs in the late winter. I realized that the season of fasting and abstinence from meat occurs in the time of the year when, historically, food was scarce.
Before the modern age, when storage was in root cellars, smokehouses, salt barrels, and trenches covered with straw, winter supplies had dwindled and vegetables had yet to make an appearance. Most animals had not yet produced young, and chickens laid fewer eggs when days were shorter. In my less than spiritual thinking, I thought how brilliant the Church was to impose fasting and abstinence during such a time.
Now, many years later, I realize that my thinking was shallow. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, is “a somber recognition that in the great cycle of earthly life, none of us is here for very long,” according to an editorial in NOLA.com, once known as the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The ashes on the head and the words, “Remember, man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return,” always come as something of a jolt. All the crater creams and cosmetic procedures cannot change the reality that, unless we choose to be cremated, our faces will eventually look like a skull from a medieval burial.
My mother saw the humor in it and declared that she hated to clean under the beds because someone was either coming or going.
Lent is a time for prayer, fasting, and alms giving, that is, giving to those less fortunate than we are. It is also a time for repentance, which must include a resolve to amend our sinful ways.
In one sense, Ash Wednesday is like the New Year, a time for resolution to discipline ourselves in these areas so that we can grow spiritually. To quote NOLA.com again, “Lent reminds us how small we are in the scheme of things, a welcome corrective to the narcissism of our politics, the narrowness of our generosity, the nastiness of reality TV and the darker corners of social media. … The hope is that small personal disciplines will help deepen our spiritual resolve for bigger challenges. As we move through a divisive time in our country, we also hope that our Lenten practices help us lessen the vitriol rampant in our society and elevate our political discourse.”
This year, I am trying to fast from sarcasm and harsh words in person and in writing. Forty years in the South have eroded the brusque edges of my communication, but curt Yankee phrases still creep in. I wish I could speak as effortlessly and humorously as Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana who can counter erroneous ideas in such a gentlemanly manner that the object of his words hardly knows he or she has been skewered.
When I started my Island News opinion stint, I realized that written responses to my essays would most likely present the antithesis to my points of view. When people tell me that they like my writing, they almost always do so in a whisper as if they are afraid of being attacked. So, at least for this season, I will try to say a prayer for the people who read my writing and take the time to respond to my feeble attempts at rational argument.
I also might fast from political commentary. As I wrote in my first article, there is more to life than politics. There will be plenty of opportunities to reflect on government officials and 2026 elections as the year progresses. Now is the time to appreciate the natural world’s prelude to heaven: spring and the glory of Easter.
Louise Mathews retired from a career in community colleges and before that, theater. A 13-year come-here in Beaufort, she has been a dingbatter in North Carolina and an upstater from New York.