Chocolate or wine?

A reflection for Lent:

Chocolate or wine

Chocolate or wine?
Wine or chocolate?
Which should I renounce?
Or should I really push the boat out and renounce both?
I mean it is only for 6 weeks
Even I could manage that
And I’d emerge smug and self righteous
My halo extra shiny
After being so self denying
I mean that’s going to make all the difference, isn’t it?
That will really change the world
If I indulge my lack of self indulgence
Besides, I’d probably lose about 20 pounds too
A new figure and a shiny soul
Not to be sneered at.
Is that what its come to?
Is that what its all about
Giving up and then self- congratulating
That’s what God surely wants
No, its what God demands
That we all make ourselves miserable and short tempered
and renounce all our coping mechanisms for 6 weeks
so that we too can emerge again from our self imposed tombs
all the better for our “suffering”
God help us when we trivialise sacrifice.
When we dare to imagine that a little self denial
Helps us identify with love in its extremity.
God, the last word in party excuses
Who came up with every reason ever invented to party
Must shrivel and die
When confronted with our pathetic attempts at Lent
Repentance occasions rejoicing
So why do we fail so miserably to capture that
Life giving season
Why do we make a drudgery
Of something beautiful-
getting ready to celebrate such love
and being transformed by such life.
Chocolate?
Wine?
How about throwing our all into love?
Liz Crumlish 2009