Plus by Minus.

"Lent is a time for you to punch yourself in the crotch every time you get a boner." - SeaNomad

This was a quote one of my favorite people in the world, and you know, after a week of Lent, I don't think she is completely off base.

I love Lent. I feel it helps me, more than any season in the Church's calendar, to grow within my relationship with my God. Something I'll never completely understand.

But I love talking about Lent even more. Especially to non-believers, it's a crazy time of self-flagellation, self-denial and religious pratter. And I get that. Give up meat one day a week? WTF? With all the trendy vegan places everywhere, that's as arbitrary as it is sacrificial. Giving something up? "I give up giving stuff up... har-har-har." And abstaining? Don't even get me started on that.

But still, I love Lent. Why?

To me, Lent is Spring-Training for the year. Lent is when we clear the slate and start working on the basics. Giving up meat on Fridays is the spiritual equivalent of wind sprints. During this Spring Training, is when we work on our swing for the new year. It's when we take an honest look at our game film from the last year, look for holes in our swing and try, through repetition-repetition-repetition-repetition to work out the kinks.

Having trouble hitting that inside curve? Work on opening your stance.

Falling for the high heat? Work on shortening up your swing to give you more time to decide on the pitch.

So it goes with Lent.

There's a lot that more that goes into the season: increased prayer, maintaining a sense of introspection (did you know Catholics are not to say "hallelujah" during Lent?) and much more doctrinal minutiae. But I think my favorite part of Lent comes in the choosing one item or activity to remove from your life.

On its face it smacks of capricious self-flagellation. But me say its a device that renders the whole more than the sum of its parts. Let me explain.

What is it to be a Christian or a member of any other religion? When you really break it down from a purely objective standpoint, being a Christian means living your life as closely as you can to a sort of code of Christian code of conduct. There is a line to be walked. Things you do that you wouldn't normally, and things that you don't that you usually would.

Well giving up something during the Lenten season is sort of like that in a a 47 day period in preparation for the rest of the year. By removing something from your life that you would usually do and enjoy, you're supposed to examine the effect of the vacuum of that thing in your life.

Giving up coffee, getting past the headaches, twitchiness, irritability and grouchiness created by the absense of that, one is free to imagine what they will drink instead. What will they discuss things over? What will they spend $4 a day on? What will they get on their breaks?

Its not the act of giving something up that matters, its what you with the space left by it that matters. It doesn't do you any good to let go of hating your father if you only replace it with hatred for your brother. Lent is a time for us to work out those kinks.

Lent is a time of addition by subraction. We grow by examining the space left by what we've lost.

So yeah maybe it's not exactly punching yourself in the crotch whenever you get a boner at all.

I just thought it was a funny quote.