Lent: A Time of Subtraction

Primary school teachers often say that the first month of every new school year is spent simply getting the pupils to remember all that they knew in June but have forgotten during the long summer holidays. September is the “catch-up” month. Especially children who take a laid-back approach to learning – as does my eight year old neice. I asked her at the end of the summer to multiply three by five. She paused, thought for a moment and answered with an unconcerned shrug, “Fifty-three?” before returning to combing her hair. Much to the chagrin of her father – himself a teacher – who is always telling me how advanced she is!
Which brings me to Lent. What is Lent about – if you had to put it into one word?
For me – in a word – Lent is about subtraction. Here’s what I mean: Lent is a reasonably short period each year – forty days, about six weeks – when we are asked to subtract a few things from our lives, for the benefit of our souls. We are asked by the wisdom embodied in the ancient practices of the Church. And this is profoundly counter-cultural. Almost every single cultural influence working on us says the opposite: TV, the online world, advertising, much of the rhetoric of the educational establishment tells us that we need to add to our lives. To be happy, we need more. Add more holidays; add better furniture to the house; add a new kitchen; upgrade your SKY package; get a better car – get a second or third car; get more stuff; get better trainers – add and you will improve your life and you will be happier.
Of course, that’s not true. But the message comes at us a hundred times a day – explicit or implicit: “You need more!” Often, in the words of the famous shampoo advert, “Because you deserve it.”
Let’s be honest: most of us have much, much more than our grandparents or great-grandparents. I don’t believe for a second that in general, our lives are happier or richer emotionally or culturally; that we laugh more or are more secure than they; or love our children better. Mostly, we just have more stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to live in the past. Even if I’m sure the I could be as content as a sheep farmer in the Glens of Antrim or a cattle dealer in Ballymena as were my great grandfathers, I would not want to live in a world without antibiotics, anaesthetic or paracetamol. That much of modernity – together with warm houses, soft beds and medicine – is a blessing. What is definitely not a blessing is the myth that having more equals being happier.
And so many are obsessed with it, aren’t they? It’s an obsession that can grip us all at times: “If only I had that … I would be better and feel more fulfilled.” I think we all know from experience, that as soon as one gets what one dreams of, materially, no lasting satisfaction arrives in its trail: one simply starts to want the next thing up the food chain. I had a humbling experience of this in my own life some years ago. I was upgraded to business class on a long-haul flight. I’d never had that experience before and was excited like a child at the flat-beds, the luxury pods, the champagne, the intimate service – “How would you like your steak cooked, sir?” My travel companion, a frequent flyer, was upgraded to First Class on the same flight and, during the flight sneaked me up to have a quick peak at his cabin. I was gutted! It was so much nicer than my upgrade: the flat-beds seemed flatter, the pillows softer; they had Krug champagne, whilst I had to manage with Pol Roger! Seeing First took the goodness, the thankfulness, from my heart! Later in the flight, as I reflected on this strange succession of feelings from my flat bed, I realised that God had given me a very important lesson for life: aspiring to more material things, better experiences, more comfort … simply “more,” is a never-ending cycle. It feeds on itself and creates not only dissatisfaction but, worse, anxiety, once a certain basic level of comfort is achieved. Creating the want for more, is creating the craving on which all consumerism is based. It’s saying: the key to your happiness, the meaning of your life, is in addition.
Now, none of us can escape that consumer-driven myth. It’s the consumer culture of which we are all part. But we are Christians, so we must name this lie, recognise its effects and critique its claims. It will not bring the true happiness and deeper peace which it purports to bear. And, as Christians, we can act in a way that cuts across its comfortable and addictive lie – the lie the really is our “temptation in the desert”.
Naming the lie, critiquing it and counteracting it in our own lives: this is what Lent is for. It’s about subtraction. It is saying: instead of looking for happiness by adding more, subtract a few things from your life, and wait to see what happens. That is what is really at the core of all that we have been traditionally taught that Lent involves – the “giving up” and the “taking up” that we usually do in these weeks. And that is what is meant by the old mantra that Lent is a time of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. Each of these is about subtraction. Subtracting a little food – meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and from our own choices at other times: that’s fasting. Subtracting some of the money we spend on ourselves or on the “more” that obsesses us, and giving it to the needy: that’s almsgiving. Subtracting some of the time we give to ourselves, our pleasures and our pursuits, and giving that time to God: that’s prayer.
It’s about less of me … less for me…. But for a purpose: not to make life glum, but to clear a little space in our packed, demanding and material-stuffed lives for our true selves; to try to become quieter, to listen and to catch that gentle voice that speaks, we are told, softly: the whispering of the One who made us for himself and with whom generations have witnessed we have our only hope of true happiness. “Man does not live by bread alone….” The Spirit who led Jesus out into the desert, is leading our and me into Lent and holding out a similar invitation. He is saying: “Move away from the “stuff” for forty days, and let me show you who you really are….”
I think it’s important as we do to meet each other in honesty. Lent is tough. For the last two years, Lent for me has bombed. But this year, I’m trying again. That consoling glass of wine with supper in the evening has gone for a few weeks; TV can wait till Easter Day; pudding and chocolate – well…I’ll will do my best! And the time saved: for prayer, for others, for Him. A very limited fasting of the body, a very restricted fasting of the senses, I know; but all part of the subtraction of Lent – and the spiritual wisdom of the Church, that if taken up in sincerity of heart, can break the headlong rush of materialism; that can teach us again what can so easily be forgotten during the rest of the year; and that can allow us to hear and feel God.