Did You Know? That Lent was about Losing Weight?

I recently read that Lent is about more than losing weight. And I thought. But isn’t that the very essence of Lent? Losing the weight of bitterness, hatred, pride, jealousy, vengeance, scorn, greed and gluttony? And of course, the greatest weight of all, our own self-loathing and self-rejection. And how do we lose the weight? One path might be to live imperfectly perfect – living in the now, with all of our flaws and the flaws of others and enjoying them, not in spite of, but because of. We’d all be a lot richer if we loved the poor. Maybe that’s why the desert is such a wonderful image for this season. A time to be without the weight of co-dependence, addictions, compulsive behaviors, gossip and mood altering drugs that at the end of the day offer nothing but more self-loathing. Fasting and abstaining, not from what nourishes us, but from what destroys us.