Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. The last day to consume all the booze, beads, sugar, sex—whatever—in preparation for a forty day fast. (This is my Louisiana blood talking.) This binge before the purge is, of course, not the most spiritually actualized approach to the final day of Ordinary Time. Still, human as we are, a good lot of us will go out with a consumptive bang, an experience of the grand Whizz Bang you’ve all come to know and love.

This year, I have decided to take a bit of a different course. Instead of binging, I’m preparing. I’ve spent the morning outlining a path of growth toward grace. And no, that does not simply mean setting a bunch of spiritual growth goals, though there are a few of those. Instead, it means living into the grace of my own “human merely being,” as E.E. Cummings wrote. How? Consider a short list.

The Purge. As I wrote yesterday, I’m fasting from Twitter and Facebook (save and except to promote “A Drink with a Friend,” the podcast I cohost with Tsh Oxenreider). A less digital life leads to a more human one.
The Prayer. I’m learning to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, beginning with morning and evening prayers. This way of praying has been a staple of Christian devotion for round about 1,500 years. If the monks, priests, and great saints of history have benefited from it, surely I can too. (For more on the Liturgy of the Hours, go here.)
The Project. I’m finishing a writing project. My novel, Bears in the Yard, has been lying dormant for almost 8 years. It’s time to finish it up. (If you want to read the installments, join the paying subscribers on my Substack channel. I think you’ll enjoy it.)
The Poetry. I’m digging deeper into the work of the great poet, T.S. Eliot. Through it, I hope to get a sense of his own human experience, the way he balanced the spiritual and the physical.

It’s a modest list. I’m subtracting some things, adding others. Through it, I’m hoping to experience my humanity a little more in this Lenten season. And as the great day of Easter dawns, I hope to better understand the necessity of the redemption of the body, of all things.

It’s Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Go ahead and engage your large appetites if you must. But before you do, ask yourself: How will I approach this Lenten season? Then, chart a course.