Is It O.K. To Give Up Liver For Lent?

    

 

 

Tucson Weather Today

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As difficult as it may be to believe, I have nearly reached the age of 75 and until I (a couple days ago) looked it up I had little knowledge of the reiigious meaning of 'Lent.' Even though I had heard the word mouthed about for all those years, I never felt inspired to learn about it. To me, it was just one of those Roman Catholic rituals that some priest back in ancient times formulated to strengthen the church's hold on the masses of ignorant peasants that obediantly prostrated themselves to curry favor with the God that the church created in order to threaten and frighten them into obeying their (the priest's) commandments.

Now I am becoming educated in the ways and supposed beliefs of the Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Cardinals, Bishops, Popes, and other holy entities. I have learned that: Lent is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar of many Christian denominations that begins on Ash Wednesday and covers a period of approximately six weeks before Easter Day.

And I now know that the traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, penance, repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement and self-denial. Also, its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the tradition and events of the New Testament beginning on Friday of Sorrows, further climaxing on Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday, which ultimately culminates in the joyful celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As hard as it is for me to swallow, during Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries as a form of penitence. Many Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as reading a daily devotional, to draw themselves near to God. The Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ's carrying the Cross and of his execution, are often observed.

And that isn't all... many Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches remove flowers from their altars, while crucifixes, religious statues, and other elaborate religious symbols are often veiled in violet fabrics in solemn observance of the event.

To top that off, throughout Christendom, some adherents mark the season with the traditional abstention from the consumption of meat, most notably among Roman Catholics.

As I remember it, the Catholic families I knew in the mid to late 1940s when I was a raggedy ruffian running wild throughout the shabby neighborhoods of my small hometown were all horrified at the thought of eating meat on any Friday. Fish was all right though.

Another thing I recently learned is that Lent is traditionally described as lasting for forty days, in commemoration of the forty days which, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by the Devil.

So now I should no longer be happy and proud to me an ignorant skeptic. Now I have been delivered of The Word.

Hallelujah!

Now I know about Lent.

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Did You Know . . .?

Almost 70,000 thoughts hit the mind of an average human every day.
(Note: How in the hell could they have made such  measurements?)

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1872 an earthquake felt from Mexico to Oregon rocked the Owens Valley in California, killing 30 people. Given the reach of this quake -- people hundreds of miles away in Tijuana, Mexico, felt the shaking -- it is estimated that it had a magnitude of 7.8.

Explorer and scientist John Muir, the man who was instrumental in the establishment of Yosemite National Park, was working as a caretaker at Black's Hotel in the area at the time and witnessed the destruction of the famed natural landmark Eagle Rock.

For the next two months, there were literally a thousand aftershocks, though none were deadly.

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WORD FOR TODAY

relativity
noun
1. 
  a :  the quality or state of being relative
  b :  something that is relative
2
  the state of being dependent for existence on or determined in nature, value, or quality by relation to something else
3.
  physics: a theory developed by Albert Einstein which says that the way that anything except light moves through time and space depends on the position and movement of someone who is watching.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

 

 

Leonard Simon Nimoy
(born March 26, 1931)

Leonard Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, singer and photographer. Nimoy is best known for his role of Spock in the original Star Trek series (1966–1969), and in multiple film, television, and video game sequels.

Sandra Day O'Connor
(born March 26, 1930)

Sandra Day O'Connor is a retired United States Supreme Court justice, and in 2013 was listed as a NAFTA adjudicator. She served as an Associate Justice from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement from the Court in 2006. She was the first woman to be appointed to the Court.

Clinton Richard Dawkins
 (born March 26, 1941)

Richard Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer. He came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. Dawkins is an atheist and  is vice president of the British Humanist Association. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker.

Amy Lysle Smart
(born March 26, 1976)

Amy Smart is an American film and television actress and former fashion model. Her first film role was in director Martin Kunert's film Campfire Tales, followed by a small role as Queenie in the 1996 rendition of John Updike's short story, "A&P." She had a minor role in the 1997 film Starship Troopers as the co-pilot for (and friend of) Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards). She had a starring role in the mini-series The 70s, playing a young woman from Ohio. In 1999, Smart played the girlfriend of a popular American football player (played by James Van Der Beek) in the film Varsity Blues.

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"When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."
--Albert Einstein

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