Some Lent musings

 Last night was Ash Wednesday services. I know traditionally (at least in Catholic churches) these were done in the morning, and you were expected to wear your cross (or splotch, in some diocese) of ashes all day long. But we're Mainline Protestants/Reform church (Disciples of Christ) and we tend not to follow tradition strictly. 

It was a short service. A couple hymns, communion, and a short message about the meaning of the ashes. And then we walked up and got the mark of them.

I don't know. I joked elsewhere that "I'm reform church with some High Church leanings" and yes, I like the little bit of ritual, the things that are different from everyday life.

It's funny - yesterday was unusually warm (abnormally so for February) and I found myself thinking of the years that we went to Maundy Thursday services in threatening thunderstorms (one year there was a power outage in the service). 

Also thinking about the "from dust you are, to dust you shall return." And yes, of course: on some level I believe in immortal souls (or at least, I hope there are) but also I feel like I've gazed into a whirling abyss for a very long time, and I don't know but that's changed my personality. (First, losing several people I cared about - well, heck, that has been ongoing until very recently - then living through a pandemic and other exhausting and bewildering world events) And I admit I feel more "unmoored" than I ever have in my life before. 

I did decide to reduce sweets/dessert consumption.Not cut it out altogether, that's a recipe for failure, but maybe not every day. Maybe at least fast of them on weekdays? I could *probably* do that (with some carve-outs: when I'm up at my mom's over spring break, she wants to make me a birthday cake - which will be late for my birthday by two weeks or so but that doesn't matter, there's nowhere good here in town for me to GET cake, and I don't have the time or energy to make myself one, so I'll just wait)

I also do need to stare into the abyss less, but baby steps.

***

I also got to thinking about something I saw on a tumblr the other day, and then on Twitter: someone was writing about his wife's much-loved Garfield plushie - he found a vintage-but-unused one for comparison:

And I love that idea - and look at that Garfield. I kind of love how when his eye-paint wore off, it left him looking like he had his eyes closed, smiling.

Other people carried on with the idea. I wish I could find the original artist on this but it's one of those things that gets shared without attribution on twitter and tumblr, but I love it:

And I tried a Google Lens search but it turns up a few twitter accounts, but because of bitrot at twitter it doesn't take you right to the post so I don't know which of the people (if any) who posted it drew it.

And the person who runs the "Fishtopher the Cat" account (Fishtopher was a sad, older cat left in a shelter, who got adopted):

And yes, that's nice too.

I don't know. I've been thinking about "to be loved is to be changed" a LOT over these past couple days. 

As I've said before, (to use another comment I read on tumblr once), some people "need to be loved a little louder" and yeah, that's true of me. 

Because I found myself thinking also of the old story about the Garfield phones found in that French cave (because their container fell off the container ship in a storm):

And I quipped on Twitter: maybe you can be changed without being loved.

and then immediately opined that maybe I was more like the eldritch French-cave Garfield phones than like the well-loved plushie Garfield, at least in the ways I've changed in recent years. (I have been alone far too much for it to be good for me)

And you know? I'm happy to see that Garfield seems to be having a bit of a renaissance. I remember being a fan (on sort of a low level; I never had a Garfield t-shirt and only one or two of the books) of the strip back in its early days, and I had a small plush Garfield (actually kind of like the one in the top picture) that I think I donated to a rummage sale at some point when I was in college.(Now I kind of wish I had one back, but they don't make them any more, just the weird squishy inspired-by-the-CGI-movie one that is made by some slightly dodgy Chinese factory and sold on Amazon, and I don't feel like trolling Etsy or Ebay for a vintage one and pay the big bucks)

But yes, the strip is one of the Good Things I remember from those tween years (like Smurfs, and Mrs. Grossman's stickers) that allowed me to hang on to childhood for a couple more years before entering the teenaged years (which I admittedly wasn't very good at). And so, even if people do ridicule it for being kind of middlebrow (and I guess it is, often the humor was pretty tame), I still have an unironic soft spot on my heart for Garfield...