Lent, the Last Dream

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At Saint Louis Cathedral, on Ash Wednesday, Carnival lifted its joyous mantle leaving Lent's ashen smudge in its place. Business suits stood cheek-by-jowl with crimson capes and smeared-lipstick ladies waiting for the priests to put their Sign of The Cross on our foreheads, with a thumb dipped in the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday palms.

Outside a soft rain washed The City. I have many doubts about theological things, but none whatsoever about this ceremony. To ashes we all return.

Lent is the strangest holiday in all the Christian calendar. Also the longest. Should you need reason to be suspicious of religion, consider this: Carnival's length shortens, Lent's does not.

The calculation of Carnival's ever-changing length depends on the ever-changing date of Easter. Lent is always forty days preceding Easter. Carnival is the season from the Twelfth Night after Christmas (January 6, when the Magi came to the baby Jesus with their offerings of incense, myrrh, and beads) to Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is the last day of Carnival. Next day is Ash Wednesday, first day of Lent.

Because the Catholic Calendar by which we measure all this (and our due-bills) is a mess, the date of Easter changes with the moon. It is calculated (or mis-calculated) to foretell Spring with measurements embedded with faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.

Next year's Carnival is February 8, more than two weeks less than this year's. Suffering is not to be monkeyed with in this theological calculation. Carnival's pleasure, however, is a reducible thing by God. Or His agents, with their inaccurate stopwatch.

Lenten fasting repairs Winter's damage and Carnival's excess, and prepares the believer for Spring's rebirth. Like the jazz man says, "Blow the roof off the sucker . . . "

It is a good Lent we are having this year, with sunny mornings and a warm place in the kitchen to read the papers and sip coffee. The live oaks outside my dormer windows are Baby Dome green. They don't dump their leaves till Spring's new buds arrive. Then they change from old dark green farts to young soft green poots almost overnight. Today soft green rules the Big Swamp City, and old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun they can find.

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L. A. Norma and I went to see THE FOG OF WAR, the Robert S. McNamara story of war and lies.

I'm glad old McNamara spoke up. Too bad it was after the fact. Clearly he sees his confessions as redemption through learning. I think he is right. Future generations, should we have them, will study this film.

Maybe Attorney General John Ashcroft will have a sickbed revelation, and speak up during the fact.

McNamara is 85. This film is full of close ups making it an interesting thing to watch his teeth age, and turn to gold. Wages of war?

Warm, sunny weekday screening of FOG of WAR, and nearly a full house. The film is a hit. Its timing is great, with all the country now concerned about Landslide's crackpot leadership, there is McNamara, bigger than life, talking about how they lied us into their war.

Leaving the matinee, we spotted two Father-Son teams. The Fathers looked a bit too young for Vietnam, but the war went on so long (had to get Nixon re-elected) the last ones out might today be younger than old men like me. McNamara said half the casualties came after he left the effort, to juggle for the World Bank.

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Have a peaceful Lent, and see you at the Eighteenth Annual Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival, March 24 - 28.