Finding Quiet In A Carnival World

For many around the world, Fat Tuesday is just another day. There are no parades or feasts.

In South Louisiana, though, the parades, with beads tossed from semi-sized floats bearing colorful, grinning paper heads and ear-splitting, jazz blasting bands, show up after New Year’s and end on the evening before Lent officially begins.

At midnight on Fat Tuesday, then, the street sweepers cruise at a walking pace down Bourbon Street, as if to announce to the world that it’s time to clean up, quiet down and pay attention.

And yet, on Ash Wednesday, it’s not unusual to find more than a few tourists still sporting their metallic beads and bopping to the sound of festival music, throwing back gallons of sticky, red alcoholic concoctions called Hurricanes, whirling, willfully, mindlessly, into whatever life might toss at them.

The locals, by and large, have cooled it by then, and can often be found walking swiftly to work or into school with fragrant, black crosses adorning their foreheads. South Louisiana is a Catholic capital, after all, and we take our receiving of ashes seriously.

Still, in the weeks to come, many of us will drift away from our Lenten promises, if we made them at all.

Spring in the Deep South is plum, offering fragrant, balmy afternoons, seasoned fish dishes that hardly seem like sacrifice and more parades, like those we went to during Mardi Gras, to celebrate St. Patrick.

It’s easy to drift back to the carnival state of mindlessness and consumption.

Regardless of where you live or how Catholic your community might be, most of us dwell in a culture that embraces a carnival far more readily than a fast.

In the next few weeks, few will remember or acknowledge that Lent is happening. Even fewer will embrace this season and rejoice in all its gifts.

One solution? Try the proactive approach to Lent.

1. Pare back. Take a look at your life. What can you remove, temporarily, that is getting in the way of your awareness of God? How can you increase the quiet in your day so that you have time to pray?

2. Watch the clock. How do you spend your time? Do you give of it lovingly or do you expect a lot of glory in return? Have you lost track of what God wants you to do with your earthly existence? What steps can you take to return to His calling for you?

3. Look at relationships. Now is the time to rid yourself of toxic connections, walk away from friends who are keeping you from becoming all Christ wants you to be. It’s also a chance to make sure you are communicating well, with words that add life to others. If you find yourself gossiping frequently, stop and ask yourself, when speaking about another person, why you are sharing this news. Is it to build God’s kingdom or to tear down another?

4. Change your heart. Make a commitment to move closer to God, by going to Mass one more time each week, giving Eucharistic Adoration a try, getting back to reconciliation, even if it’s been a decade or few, experiencing the Stations of the Cross as if for the first time, or through the eyes of Christ Himself.

With a smidgen of discipline, and a willingness to temporarily silence the roar of your busy life, you can open the door of your heart to Christ, which is what Lent is really about.