Ash Wednesday

Mormons don't observe Carnival or Lent, and I have never given up anything for Lent before. But this year, I've decided to give up drinking and soda. This stems less from a religious/devotional place and more from a physical place as I'm trying to eat healthier and lose weight. I'm giving up all soda till Easter, but I will allow myself to have the occasional glass of wine on Sundays as allowed. Lent is also a time for self-reflection which I could use more of, especially when my life doesn't seem to be going anywhere. 

I did celebrate Mardi Gras in my own little way, making red beans and rice, macaroni & cheese with a Cajun twist, and a King Cake frosted in the Mardi Gras colors. I then went with Kristen to Bar X in downtown SLC for some final cocktails and then we went to Denny's. And nothing says Mardi Gras quite like Denny's.

Finally, here is a poem by the devotional poet George Herbert which I think is fitting for today.

Church Monuments

While that my soul repairs to her devotion, 
Here I entomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust,
To which the blast of Death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in dusty heraldry and lines;
Which dissolution sure doth best discern,
Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth.
These laugh at jet and marble, put for signs,

To sever the good fellowship of dust,
And spoil the meeting—what shall point out them,
When they shall bow and kneel and fall down flat
To kiss those heaps which now they have in trust?
Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem
And true descent, that, when thou shalt grow fat,

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know
That flesh is but the glass which holds the dust
That measures all our time, which also shall
Be crumbled into dust. Mark here below
How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,
That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.

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