Ash Wednesday: The First Day of Lent

First off I have to make a public apology to skye2day, if I sounded like I was angry or upset in yesterday’s blog. It is because I treasure your friendship and companionship along this journey that I am traveling that I was more frustrated then angry. It was because of your comments and caring words that inspired me to write a couple of blogs explaining my chose of using FatMan911 and to change my profile to include my real name, and I just got a little frustrated. Luckily I’m an artist and I channeled that frustration into creative energy and fashioned a wonderful new art website for my art works hopefully you all will take a look and tell me what you think. The web address is http://www.wix.com/jerrybacik/Digital-Artist

Well today is Ash Wednesday, The first day of lent, for those who are not Catholic it’s the day you see a bunch of people with dirty smudges on there forehead, it’s suppose to be a cross, but often times it ends up looking like a bunch of people didn’t wash there face this morning. This reminds me of a humorous story a good friend and mentor use to tell me.

Now Thom grew up on an Indian reservation in Washington and was not very familiar with Catholic customs, and one of the first jobs he had as a theater techie was setting up a road show in Michigan. Now for those who are not familiar with “the business” when you work as a crew member in a road show, you only have 2 or 3 days to drag in and set up the scenery, and light for a show that might run a week to a month and then you strip it all down and move it to the next town. And so those drag in days are full of long hard work often times with out any sleep. And so there was Thom two days into a drag in, dead tired, taking a short break to get some breakfast, when all of a sudden he sees all these people walking around with crosses on their forehead, he told me that he felt like he was in land of the dead or the body snatchers, and the zombies were out to get him. Can you imagine being sleep deprived, wired on caffeine, and then a bunch of people with ashen crosses on their forehead come after you, I would freak a little bit too, especially if it was like a neighborhood church and mass had just gotten out and the streets were just filled with people.

But I have to say that this is one of my favorite times of the year, liturgically speaking, unlike Christmas which I hate. Lent and Easter, has been celebrated from the earliest beginnings of the Church. I love the music of lent, the time of reflection, and the call to holiness and the eventual celebration of Christ’s triumph over death.

I absolutely loved this mornings mass, and it makes me question, ending my fast in 7 short days, and I might decide to extend it to Easter. We will see, I had some low fat, low calorie food coming in that needs to be refrigerated, so it might not last for another 30 days, so I might not be as strict with my fast and I might not talk about it as much, because you know, fasting and prayer done in the silence of your own room is often times more precious then wearing your faith on your sleeve and declaring it for all the world to see.

However, this blog might take a decisively spiritual shift for the next 40 days, (And I apologies in advance for those who are not particularly religious, and who follow me). I will try not to be to preachy, and direct my reflections on personal growth but I’m sure some of my religious thoughts will creep in. Once again I’m sorry but I’m just being honest.

And so peace and love be with you

FM ( aka Jerry)