The Day After Mardi Gras, Ash Wed., March 2020
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| Photo credit Janis Turk |
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"There were so few gun incidents this year
we had to resort to running over viewers and falling off floats!"
~ pedicab driver to tourists
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we had to resort to running over viewers and falling off floats!"
~ pedicab driver to tourists
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by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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March 2020
The Day After Mardi Gras
Ash Wednesday
and the Forty Days of Lent
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2020, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved
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by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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March 2020
The Day After Mardi Gras
Ash Wednesday
and the Forty Days of Lent
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2020, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved
On Ash Wednesday (February 26), all over Louisiana, Carnival lifted its joyous mantle, leaving Lent's ashen smudge in its place.
At Saint Louis Cathedral, New Orleans' business suits stood 
cheek-by-jowl with crimson capes and smeared-lipstick ladies awaiting priests dressed in the Vestments of Sorrow, smearing The Sign of The Cross on the celebrant's forehead with thumbs dipped in the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday Palms. Outside,
Zamboni-like street sweepers wash
The City.
Inside,
we harbor doubts about theological ceremonies,
but none whatsoever about this ceremony.
To ashes we are returning.
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| Banana Tree Photo credit: Deb Kohler |
Should you need a reason to be suspicious of evangelical religion's temporal powers consider this fact: Carnival's pleasurable time shrinks by measure of the inaccurate
Pope Gregorian Calendar. So as to accommodate Lent.
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Lent ~ by those same inaccurate calculations is codified into Canon Law to never lose one penitent day of suffering.
"In such order we find sad Truths,"
L. A. Norma.
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| Clearing the Liturgical Air |
"The Gregorian Calendar," L. A. Norma explains to a bewildered tourist sharing our pedicab,
"What with Easter changing with the moon, is none too accurate!
"For instance,
take leap year!"
🧧
Easter Sunday marks Lent's end,
and is also a ceremony to welcome Spring.
It was borrowed by the marauding legions of Rome, from religions they happened upon that had come along long before Christianity went on the road.
It may be the oldest human celebration, and it is calculated (or miscalculated) into Canon Law, with instruments created from faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.
Easter Sunday marks Lent's end,
and is also a ceremony to welcome Spring.
It may be the oldest human celebration, and it is calculated (or miscalculated) into Canon Law, with instruments created from faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.
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| Beansprout |
Lenten fasting repairs Winter's damage and Carnival's excess, and prepares us for Spring's rebirth.
Like the bean sprout and the jazz man say:
"Blow the roof off the sucker ..."
𝅘𝅥𝅮🎷🎜🎝🎺𝅘𝅥𝅯
𝅘𝅥𝅮🎷🎜🎝🎺𝅘𝅥𝅯
🎵
It has been a good Lent this year, with sunny mornings and a warm place in the kitchen to read Internet newspapers and sip coffee. The live oaks outside our dormer windows are a soft young green. Live oaks don't dump their leaves till Spring's new buds arrive (as followers of JFK conspiracies know). Then they change from old dark green to young soft green almost overnight.
Today soft-green rules coastal Louisiana, and we old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find,
dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.
Today soft-green rules coastal Louisiana, and we old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find,
dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.
(A lesser version of this story first appeared in 2004)
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Copyright, 2020, Leonard Earl Johnson
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Copyright, 2020, Leonard Earl Johnson
all rights reserved
For more L. E. J.'s Yours Truly in a Swamp go to
w w w . L E J . o r g
w w w . L E J . o r g
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| Photo credit, Mark Konikoff Coming next month "EASTER ON THE RIVER OF BOURBON STREET" April 2020 |
.JPG) Subscribe@LEJ.org 
If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.org anytime.
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.
~ ~ ~
LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org,
Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and periodically at
Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,
publication of the
It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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All Rights Reserved.
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 12:29 AM
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