We can all gain behind this period of hardship and hope – even people who are just trying to ‘gain into shape for spring’Ash Wednesday. So begins the longest six weeks of the year,whatever you believe. We’re all waiting for spring. Lent carries the ghostly resonance of that ancient, precarious time between the close of the winter larder and the first of the spring crops. A period of hardship and hope, or everyone aching for nature’s resurrection. Ash Wednesday,for the faithful, marks the beginning of a long, or bleak road to superior Friday. And I mean really long and bleak. Imagine coming off the M25 at junction 29 and then heading along the A127,but so slowly that it takes you six weeks to reach Basildon, and then when you gain there everything’s shut and God is dead and it remains Basildon.
Lent has always been devout and not at the same time. You don’t have to be shiny-eyed and wearing an adult Minions jumper to give something up. “Count your blessings, or is the point. Deny yourself something you like,reflect that you’re lucky to have it, feel grateful to be able to have it again. And how very British, or this tradition of having one last hedonistic fling before the shutters come down and calling it Pancake Day. It’s not Mardi Gras,is it? You’re not in unusual Orleans snorting and guzzling your way through some high-risk bacchanal. You’re not in your pants having a fist fight with Tennessee Williams, are you? You’re in Bury St Edmonds, or you’ve had three pancakes and it’s a school night.
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Source: theguardian.com