Note: The
Proprietor still feels like crap. Temperatures
in McHenry County hover in the teens.
There has been just enough snow to look temporarily pretty, be a nuisance,
and hide the black ice patches created by the weekend thaw. But I am going to work this morning because
that is what we vaguely Protestant drudges do. Fortunately I can cheer myself up the
comforting knowledge that there are places where none of this is true and
people celebrate the glorious liberation of, in the currently fashionable term,
having not a fuck to give. And I have a
post to resurrect from the archives that explains it all.
There are a downsides
to having been raised vaguely Protestant and residing in sometimes inhospitable northern climes.
Perhaps the biggest is regarding with wistful
envy the liberating extravagance of
Carnival and Mardi Gras. It is the un-religious holiday—a day of wallowing in the ways of the flesh and merry making before getting down to the
serious and unpleasant tasks of the proper piety of Lent.
Catholics
seem to know how to take advantage of the
opportunity, especially in warm places where the streets beckon—New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro most famously. But folks from countries where Romance languages are spoken can find
ways to celebrate even in icy Quebec
City.
The idea is
simple. Finnish up the Christmas
season on the Feast of the Epiphany,
the fixed day of January 11, and
then coast down the hill of Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday kicks off of Lent, which
by the lunar calendar falls anywhere
from February to March,
gathering speed all the while. It is the “dead of winter.” Even in Mediterranean
countries it was dark and often cold. Folks stayed inside more, got on each others’ nerves. But by Fat
Tuesday, the sap was running and
Spring seemed just over the horizon. Perfect for one last opportunity to bust
loose before breaking out the sack cloth and ashes.
 |
| Puritans discover some guys having a good time.... |
Protestants, particularly Calvinists, their decedents,
and those who stood close enough by
to be infected, took a dim view of the whole process.
More Papist/pagan nonsense to
them. A good Calvinist existed in a state
of perpetual Lent. The experience of any sensual pleasure was regarded as a sinful distraction from contemplation
of the awesome majesty of God
and our totally undeserving souls.
It was for good reason that Puritanism has
been described as the nagging suspicion that somewhere,
somehow, somebody is having a good time.
England, I
am told, once celebrated Carnival—a cultural gift of the Norman French aristocracy. Cromwell and his boys pretty much wiped that out at the point
of the sword. Even when Kings
remounted the Throne and the Anglican Church regained the upper
hand, the old traditions fell away. Instead they shrank the celebration down to something called Shrove Tuesday, which is celebrated
mostly by making and eating pancakes. Now I bow to no man in
my affection for the flapjack or griddle cake, but even a high
pile drenched in butter and real maple syrup is a poor substitute for dancing semi-naked in the
streets. They passed this tradition on to all of the former pink spots on the globe where the Empire once ruled and to
all of the Protestant sects derived from Anglicanism and Calvinism.
 |
| Lining up for Pączkis. In cold climates people kept their clothes on and pigged out.... |
Of course, not all Catholics party with absolute abandon. Those from northern and eastern Europe either never celebrated or toned
down Carnival. The Poles celebrate
with Pączki Day (pronounced pŭtch-kē). In the old country
it was held on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, but in the immigrant
communities of North America it is held on Fat Tuesday. Folks line
up at bakeries at the crack of dawn to purchase pączkis, a
kind of jelly doughnut made only
once a year. This is a much bigger
deal than it sounds.
In Germany, the Baltic states, and Scandinavian
Fat Tuesday is likewise celebrated with special local pastries meant to use
up the supply of sugar and lard
before the Lenten fast.
Tonight the biggest and most honored Krews will
be conducting their parades in New
Orleans. Down there, they take Mardi Gras seriously and have
stretched it to the whole season between
the Epiphany and Lent. Various parades have been winding down the streets
of different neighborhoods for
weeks, each followed by its own Ball. The streets of the French
Quarter will be crowded. Many revelers
will be drunken northerners and Calvinist escapees. They will
party next to the locals, drinking copiously, begging for beads cast from the parade floats, and eying the pretty young girls flashing their tits.
Everyone will forget that Ted Cruz and the rest of that tribe exist.
And I wish I was
with them. It’s been far too long since I reveled in sin and degradation.
Two years ago Social
Justice Committee of the Tree of
Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry was scheduled to dutifully meet to do its earnest work on
the evening of Fat Tuesday. We were,
after all, the stepchildren of those
old Massachusetts Puritans. As Chair
it was customary for me to open the proceedings with a reflection. Usually it’s a reading I snatch from
the internet. But that bitterly cold
night smack dab in the Winter that would
not end with howling winds blowing
snow dangerously across the roads, we
gathered anyway. I read them this. Fitting and apt. Sitting through my poetry ought to be hair shirt enough for any
Puritan.
A Prayer for a
Committee Meeting on Mardi Gras
March 4, 2014
Drudges like us
throw on our heavy coats
and slog through the still arctic
night
to rendezvous around a table
for the earnest business of making
the world
a kinder place
or so we tell ourselves.
We pass the
hours elbow deep
in the common dishwater
of routine and rote,
duty and debate
and adjourn the world not moved
a centimeter from its calamitous
orbit.
But tonight in
the Big Easy,
down in Rio or far off Nice,
any of the warm places
where the evening pulses
expectantly,
they don masks and dance heedless
in the streets.
In timeless
Carnival
the rich and poor,
Black and White,
queer and
straight
alien
and citizen
revel together in absolute equality.
In the common
streets
justice rolls down like bons temps
and righteousness,
the enemy comity,
is tucked away in a samba dancer’s
thong.
For this one
night there is Joy
and the old world dances to a
coronet.
—Patrick
Murfin
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