Lent and Sophie

Someone once told me that during Lent, the Catholic church allowed fish to be eaten on Fridays regardless of the "no meat" declaration because the church had a stake in the fishing industry. I took the person at their word until this year when I decided to research it for myself. It turns out that there are several reasons why fish is permitted, but here are the two that I found most interesting.

• The church makes a distinction between cold-blooded and warm-blooded creatures when it comes to the label "meat."
• Fish was a poor man's food. Eating fish on Fridays was a way to equalize classes.

The second reason is why I have chosen to participate more fully in Lent this year. Usually, my mom calls me on Fridays during Lent and says, "Remember it's Friday!" To which I reply, "So?" And she says, "So don't eat meat!" And I usually have to remind her that I am not Catholic. That seemed the right response when I lived in a more diverse area.

Now that I live in Pittsburgh where a vast portion of the population is Catholic, the old saying, "When in Rome . . . " seems to be more important than trying to help my mom understand why my church is different than hers for the 100th time. Lent for me is about celebrating our similarities where Christ is concerned and not about pointing our our differences.

This year, I've chosen to give up shopping. This has proven to be the exact right thing at the exact right time. I think about shopping alot, a pitfall of having more than enough. And everytime I go to buy something, I think instead about sacrifice and my relationship with God. So I've been doing ALOT of thinking about sacrifice and my relationship with God.

Now on to my beautiful daughter who is currently crawling around my feet trying to chew on my computer cords. Hold on . . . OK, she's onto the next thing that I'll probably have to pull her off of in a minute. Anyways, she's mobile. Very mobile. And she's smart. Super smart. She loves discovering things. I realize this is pretty par for the course, but it's a little more than that as she prefers discovering things to eating and sleeping.

Yesterday, we went to the Children's Museum. Buying a membership pass there was possibly one of the smartest things I've ever done. Sophie loved crawling around every space and looking at everything. In 5 hours, I got her to sleep for 20 minutes. And I think she may have eaten for ten minutes, begrudgingly. Here's my favorite picture from yesterday (and quite possibly the only time I was able to get her to Be Still):

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