a small issue of repentance

in prep for this sunday's lenten launch, i've been re-reading "lent: giving up guilt for 40 days"

i'm really happy with the book. it was fun to write (probably even the least stressful of all the atlases we've done), and i'm proud of how i grew and was shaped by the process.

but something's bugging me about the first few pages. it's the tone. i don't like the way i sound in the introduction. it's chippy, and a bit snarky, and i don't want to be that way.

to be fair, i was feeling chippy and snarky when i wrote the intro. i'd been studying lent for a couple of months (having previously learned nothing about it), and kept expecting this big revelation concerning christ, and season-oriented spirituality, or maybe even something specific concerning repentance, etc.

but my reading was largely fruitless. it was so frustrating to read SO MUCH and glean so little.

and on the tail end of that quest for new meaning, i wrote the intro to "lent" and gave voice to my disappointment.

i wish i hadn't. not because i feel like it's super sinful or anything, but mostly because i don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. many people, after all, find catholic spirituality (and many of the spiritual readings that disappointed yours truly) to be very meaningful, and i don't want to take that away from them. i never want to be the voice that says: the thing you love, i think is dumb. i want people to find help and meaning wherever they can, without worrying about my frustration, or my disappointment.

maybe i'm making too much of my own opinion. i mean, really, it's not like my opinion counts for all that much. i'm just writing this as a kind of apology, i guess, both to you (whoever you are) and to the version of myself i'm trying to become.

c'est la.


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