Pancakes and Politics: Super Shrove Tuesday

Well, there's an odd stew, a strange liturgical twist, a rare occasion of mixing "church and state" and, for once, it's OK. Two biggies collided yesterday -- a heated political race and the commencement of Lent.

I won't get into the politics of it -- it's way too controversial a topic for this early a.m. hour. I didn't vote, though, even though I discovered that Independents such as myself can indeed vote in the NJ primaries. I just didn't get my registration into the mail in time. For many reasons this race is making me very, very nervous, more so than any previous election. Perhaps it's because I'm older, I have more at stake, I have children, the world is a frightening place, and I really don't care for any of the candidates, making me feel quite helpless. Who knows. Moving on ...

OK -- technically Lent begins today, Ash Wednesday, but yesterday was marked by its own designated title, Shrove Tuesday. Having spent my entire life in the Reformed/Calvinist tradition, Shrove Tuesday was fairly new to me (as was Ash Wednesday). God, enjoying new ways to un-box Himself, and in his Divine Sense of Unfathomable Humor, deigned to hook me up with an Anglican, of all people. Suddenly, these "foreign" church traditions started to blip on my radar. At our churches in which we served, Shrove Tuesday was a much-anticipated event. Church-wide pancake dinners were packed, sausages and fluffy pancakes and syrup were devoured. It took me, the little Reformer, quite some time to figure out just why we were making carb-gluttons of ourselves, until I read up on the tradition. Historically, Shrove Tuesday was taken very seriously, and their devouring of rich foods and cleaning out of cupboards were not merely nice traditions but a necessity, in preparation for prayer and fasting – yes, fasting – during Lent. It was serious stuff.

But today? In all honesty, I can’t say that I thought about any of this when I walked into the parish hall over years past and ate too much. It was not a tradition I was used to. And the meaning was lost on me, centuries later, as I was able to go back to my home, belly stuffed, with my own cupboards still filled with flour and sugar and eggs.

Now that we are out of this Episcopal/Anglican circle (at least for the time being), I have easily slipped back into my Reformed roots. The blip ceased on my radar. Yesterday at 5:00 p.m. I stood in my kitchen, on hand on the cupboard’s handle, my eyes staring inside, trying to figure out what to have for dinner. There were no blips whatsoever as my eyes landed on the box of pasta, when suddenly the phone rang. It was Don.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“I think I’m going to make Mafia pasta,” I said.
There was silence.
“Um … can we have pancakes?” he asked quietly.
I was surprised and still clueless. “Pancakes? Why?”
“Well …” he paused. “It’s Shrove Tuesday.”

Oh. Right.

My heart went out to him at that moment. Even though I never became an Episcopalian, and even though it was very easy for me to let slide some of those traditions, the same isn’t true of my husband. He’s lost so much and now … all he asked for were some pancakes, a little connection to his own tradition, a tradition that he misses greatly.

So last night we had pancakes and sausages. I felt kind of gross, as I usually do on the wake of those kinds of dinners, and I was still full this morning. But I guess that’s the point – I’d be right on track if I fasted during Lent. But I don’t. It’s extremely important, of course, but I don’t fast. And today is another tradition – Ash Wednesday. And again, in years past, I would always forget what day it was, since it was not a day we typically observed. Every year when Don came home with a smudge on his forehead, I would open my mouth to inform him … but then, oh yes, it’s Ash Wednesday. This morning I asked him if he was going to find an Episcopal church today but he said no. I’m not quite sure why.

Maybe, for now, pancakes are enough.