Day 46-It's Ash Wednesday Folks--Party's Over!

i’ve been entertaining the idea for quite some time now, to revisit the fasting traditions associated with the spiritual heritage into which i was born--Ukrainian Catholicism. At the ripe old age of 29, my identity is shifting and i must contend with this aspect of my upbringing, as with all the rest.

A part of me believes it is narcissistic to think that anyone has any interest in my ramblings. Yet the impulse to document is there--it’s what i do--and i figure it’s better served to share this with people rather than keeping it cloistered in some old spiral-bound notebook tucked away in a secret corner of my bedroom.

Now, i would not consider myself a wayward catholic... In fact, i vividly recall my childhood devotion to holy things. a mixture of fascination, curiosity, obligation, and being scared shitless of going to hell!

As i grew older, and my childhood belief structures lost their totality, i reacted to faith with retaliatory rejection, mostly because i felt that it was forced upon me. i recall questions of “why” being met with responses of “because that’s the way it is,” or better yet, “because I said so.”

My dramatic, red-blooded rebellion against the religion of my ancestors coincided with an ideological conversion to good ol’ American liberal secularism, which i still partially-subscribe to today.

In a way, we experience social pressures to minimize matters of the spirit due to consumerism, political correctness, fear of judgment or ridicule, or not wanting to appear as a Bible Beater (which i assure you i am not!). As a result, a certain hollowness permeates interactions, some type of denial.

During my early adulthood it was precisely this type of absence, a spiritual vacuum, that led me on a quest to create my own spiritual identity. There was the Wiccan Bible, The Celestine Prophecy, the works of Carlos Castaneda which i recovered from my brothers’ old bedroom in my abandoned childhood home on Comly Street, and a lot of hallucinogenic experimentation.

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The early days of my celebrated, 7 year college career witnessed an intellectual exploration of the god-concept. i enrolled in a litany of courses offered by Temple University’s religion department, starting with Religion and Psychology, conducted by Dr. Lucy Bregman.

She introduced my fledgling spirituality to Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, old friends Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. These predominantly Jewish old dead white men (Maslow might still be alive, no?) made it okay to think of religion in terms of early twentieth century psychological symbolism. Goodbye Catechismal, dualistic view of the Judeo-Christian faith!

At times i pondered the religion of my birthright, which seemed so banal and familiar. i compared it to the exotic philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism (my secret favorite!). i suppose my attraction to these traditions stemmed from a selective westernized conceptualization--the ever-popular religious pluralism residing one small step above, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.”

Although these faiths entice me, especially Buddhism’s enlightened aloofness, i had enough sense to realize that i could never contextualize my life within the experience of the followers of these philosophies. (Unless i could somehow develop a way to be reincarnated into another society, perhaps in another century.)

My quest came full circle when, on the verge of earning a respectable but decidedly unmarketable religion minor from Temple, i satisfied my upper level religion requirement by enrolling in the course Jesus in the Gospels. i had to suspend certain prejudices when starting this course; being a well-educated secularized woman, i had often railed against the Judeo-Christian faith as being too patriarchal, glorifying this anthropomorphized version of “the Man.” And I still feel that way a little--it’s one of my biggest spiritual conflicts.

In any case, i approached the course with a Catholic-school familiarity with the Bible and my own brand of heretical prejudice. Yet on the first day, when Dr. Limberis humbly revealed that she was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, i thought to myself, “This lady’s got some Jeez-cred!” Preconceived notions and heresy were duly suspended.

The course revealed to us the historical dimension accompanying the creation of the four Gospels. We 

read this book!

discussed Messianic liberation theology, the Gospel of Thomas, the influence of Paul on modern Christianity. We analyzed The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis--a book that every Westerner should read at least once before they die. At the conclusion of the course, i discovered a renewed perception of the faith I was born into, but I still kept it at arm’s length.

Then, a powerful revelation regarding the purpose of religious occurred under tragic circumstances. It happened that a family member passed away suddenly at the young age of 57, the victim of a massive heart attack.

I recall the moment of insight, standing in St. Nicholas Church at 24th and Poplar at uncleTony’s funeral mass, singing the ancient Ukrainian funeral dirge “Вічная Пам’ять”--Eternal Remembrance.

It was then that I understood ritualized activity provides a framework for the bereaved, a support structure that guides social interaction at a time when intense emotion interferes with protocol. The ritual is a rite of passage pertaining to my heritage; one day the bereaved will sing Вічная Пам’ять at my own funeral. I also understand that acute awareness of mortality shapes faith at a fundamental level. These ideas, and others perhaps not so noble, guide me in the task at hand: the Lenten Fast. This online journal of sorts will document the process.