Cape Town Food

I'm a Catholic, and for a myriad of reasons Catholics give up 'something for lent'. Why we do this delves into Jesus, his 40 days before he began his ministry and a whole lot of other dogmatic and traditional aspects of my life which aren't really part of this blog, and aren't really interesting unless you are, A) Catholic or B) Interested in developing a distorted opinion of what being a Catholic is all about.

But the premise is you give something up for 40 days and 40 nights (queue the comedy), and use that denial of something you'd otherwise have to focus your mind and develop yourself spiritually. So I went from spiritually to spirits, and gave up booze for lent. Not feeling quite masochistic enough, I gave up meat as well. Right, no meat, no booze. How is a man supposed to live?

So what does "The Universe" do when you lay down such a karmic challenge? It tempts you, or rather you realise the temptation which was never there. When we say God tempts us, the truth is we have drawn a line in the sand which we have decided not to cross despite our corporal desire to do so. And that is the temptation I have felt these last 22 days, and will no doubt feel again in the next 18.

Why has it been so bad? Well in the shortest of orders the opportunity for free booze and free meat has been INSANE. From Microsoft Launch parties, to comp'd business lunches, to wine weekends and festivals, to house bring and braais, to trading conferences to Newbie Bowls with booze and boerewors rolls, the last couple of weeks have been a real test to avoid the booze and meat.

What can I say? Well I'm sure that the free booze and free meat train will pull into the station on Holy Thursday, and I'll have to pay for the meat and booze I'm no doubt going to want to drink so desperately when I finally can.

The truth is you realise your physical desires a lot more. Someone could open a bottle of wine 10 metres from me and now I'll smell it. Same re: meat, I finally understand what the OT is talking about when they talk of the smell of the the offering was pleasing to God; my word a braai is a nice smell, especially when the ruddy Israelites (or in my case, the house mates) have been hesitant to braai as of late.

I'm making my mouth water just as I write this. I should stop.

But the interesting thing to think about is the power of denial; how denying yourself something can make your realise how much you really need it. In our lives we give up things like chocolate, or our favourite TV show, but we often forget that the things we really should appreciate we aren't denied until there is nothing we can do about it: like our family, our friends, and finally our lives.

So what I've taken from this lent, spiritual growth aside, is the simple fact that everything in our lives, no matter how trivial, when taken away is something to regret. And the things which really matter even more so, which for good reason we should reach out and share and enjoy the time and things of our lives with the people we love.

// posted by Andrew la Grange @ 11:20 AM 0 Comments