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12 Mar 07 - 08:59 AM (#1994255) Subject: Did you have a good Shrovetide? From: Jerry Rasmussen In Petrushka, I always loved the movement titled Shrovetide Fair. It always sounded like an attractive celebration. I pictured folks gomboling. (Not Las Vegas style.) Carnivals are always a lot of fun. Today, I did some reading on Mardi Gras, and discovered all sorts of interesting things. In New Orleans, they celebrate Fat Tuesday. My wife asked me what Fat Tuesday was, and I told her that as far as I knew, it was the day before Ash Wednesday, where people overindulge before fasting for lent. Of course, I realize that fasting for lent is something almost nobody does any more. When I read about the Mardi Gras, I had to laugh at how commonly used words have taken on a completely different meaning. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday. In America, they could just as easily call it doughnut Tuesday... a day when you eat all the fattening foods you (in theory) are going to give up for lent so that you won't look like a beached whale when you try on your swimming suit. And of course, everyone loves a carnival. The root word there is the same as in Chili con carne, and carnivorous. The word carnival means without meat. Imagine if you said to your kids, "Hey, you want to go to the carnival tonight? we won't be eating any meat." Hold the hot dogs. And what about the Shrovetide Fair. You English folks already know about this, so no need to read further. "Shrove" means "to repent." Now there's an attractive come-on. "Hey, honey, you want to go to the Shrovetide Fair? I hear we can repent there." More likely, the Shrovetide Fair was a celebration (probably not a carnival, without meat) where you did all the stuff it took forty days of repentance to make up for, starting the next day on Ash Wednesday." And the word Lent comes from the middle English word "lente" which means springtime. If you take all of these words literally, it would make the lenten season hopelessly confusing. And there is no mention of Lent in the bible. Go figure... Jerry |
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12 Mar 07 - 09:22 AM (#1994282) Subject: RE: Did you have a good Shrovetide? From: wysiwyg The Anglican Communion sees Lent as an annual time to reflect upon the largeness of the sacrfice Jesus made for Man. Traditionally it has been a penitential season, where people "give up" something dear to them in order to walk, best they can, the path of self-sacrfice our Lord walked in those 40 days when he was tempted and tried. To that extent, Lent IS in the Bible-- though not named as such. In our parish, Hardi invites a slightly different and specific emphasis-- that of one of using the Lenten season as an annual commemoration of our closeness to the Lord, and a renewed effort to be closer to Him-- something that can only happen from OUR side because of the free will with which we are created. Some of the "distance" from Him is the way we hold ourselves separate from Him due to our feeling badly about whatever we have been doing that we feel is wrong-- like a child will avoid parents when they've done wrong and like I avoided and delayed making an apology just today to a fellow Mudcatter about something. Our Lord is always close and always ready for us to acknowledge that and turn to Him. Lent, with the related Scripture readings of the season, brings that point to the fore. Our Saturday Night service, then, has none of the traditional, lugubrious "how bad I am" hymns, but focuses in a celebratory way on the love our Lord manifested in His sacrifice and on the fact that He understands our natures, having shared our nature during His earthly pilgrimage. While we don't celebrate what was done to Him exactly, we do celebrate that His act made our redemption a sure and certain reality which we are free to accept and/or reaffirm, at any time. For years our band struggled with what music to use for Lent-- the hymnal stuff is so dreary and so unsuitable, as it happens, for acoustic instruments. Last year I changed my music-planning focus completely for the Lenten music.... now, there are spirituals mourning what was done to Him alongside uptempo, happy-sounding songs of celebration in anticipation of the annnual commemoration of His sacrfice, as well as songs asking Him to be near us in the temptations and very-human struggles of life in the world. This worked so well LAST year that we used a similar approach for Adent, another season of great anticipation that more usually has a similarly penitiential tone. Field-recording our Lenten music is underway, Jerry, and I'll send you some of it. I'll have to look back in muy planning book, but I believe we started off Lent with your "Fields of Clover." ~Susan |
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12 Mar 07 - 09:22 AM (#1994284) Subject: RE: Did you have a good Shrovetide? From: leeneia I know what you mean, Jerry. One Tuesday night I was at a casino to partake of the buffet. Turned out it was Fat Tuesday, and they had special entertainment in the foyer. Everybody was having a good time, catching the throws and listening to the music. I told my husband, "Someday I want to make a movie where a casino offers Lenten specials." On a visit to New Orleans (before Hurricane Katrina) I took a picture or two of the necklaces dangling from the power lines, months after Mardi Gras. |
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13 Mar 07 - 12:48 PM (#1995537) Subject: RE: Did you have a good Shrovetide? From: wysiwyg refresh |