It seems an odd confluence of events.
Lent (to me) is a sober time of thinking about the reward of grace in our lives. Some people do this by abstaining from chocolate. Some people don't even think about grace and abstain from chocolate anyway. Either way, somehow, thoughts of Lent get tied up with thoughts of self deprivation, religious study, internal reflection and general unfunness. Then Easter comes. The sun rises, and Christians release their 40 days of gloomy abstinence and unfunness in a celebration of eternal life by singing songs, chasing after colored eggs, eating chocolate bunnies and wearing Sunday finery.
Just my luck that for the past 40 days and more I have been largely abstaining from fun, drowning in legal study, reflecting on my stressed out state of mind and experiencing general unfunness due to the impending February Bar Exam. Am I looking forward to my day of release? Yes. But there's a catch.
The Bar Exam ends on February 26th, which also happens to be Ash Wednesday, the day Lent starts. The seemingly arbitrary and bewilderingly complex lunisolir calendar and computation system has conspired not only to force me to take a six hour essay exam on Fat Tuesday/Fastnacht Day(*)/Fasching/etc., but to also morally obligate me to be reflective and penitent on an evening on which I will be wanting to feel release. Somewhere, some religious scholar is thinking: "how apt." I am thinking: "I will eat off a chocolate bunny head to spite him."
(*) Fastnacht Day is Amish Donut Day in Lancaster County, PA. If you go to school, your teacher buys the class fat, heavy, delicious donuts and you eat them all day long. It is heaven.
1 comment:
And allow me to be the one to buy you that bunny!
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