It’s easy to be cynical about Lent. I often have been in the past (and, frankly, in many ways I still am). The litany of people giving up Facebook or chocolate—or meat, in my case—is predictable, and seems to have no lasting effect. Lent often seems to do little more than signify our privilege, how much we love to consume, and in this sense it fits perfectly with the ethos of capitalism.
Perhaps because I’m actually doing something for Lent this year (I haven’t in the past; as I said, I’m cynical), I’ve tried to take a different view of the matter. Lent involves material practices (and it is only in this sense that we should speak of any spirituality associated with it), meaning that it has the potential to foster political practices. To be clear, I’m not claiming that participating in Lent is directly political, as many neo-traditionalists of a certain stripe would claim. Rather, I’m claiming that the types of practices associated with Lent, ascetic practices (though these are often quite minimal), can help foster the type of discipline necessary for the practice of real politics. Certainly there are other ways to get to this point, so I’m not claiming for Lent any sort of exclusivity. But it is, perhaps, one way to get there—if taken seriously.
