Radio’s Ben Barnes brought point five dozen Paczki to the home.fm studio this morning, in honor of Phat/Fat/Shrove Tuesday.  Wal-Mart, Meijer, and even Hinkley Bakery are moving these strangely named pastries to prepare us for Lent, at least that’s the back story.  During the season of Lent, we prepare for Easter.  Many people will give up something — pop, candy, coffee, goo-filled donuts — as a means of spiritual discipline.  As I ate this Bavarian treat, getting white powder on my outerparts, I wondered what I would abstain from during Lent.  Cutting back is one thing; cutting back for spiritual discipline is another.  My deep desire is to encounter God and be part of His story, to better understand His atonement, and to be transformed for His glory (2 Cor 3:18).  How does not eating something help facilitate this kind of change?  You don’t know how important something is until it’s suddenly out of the mix.  As the lyric suggests:

don’t it always seem to go… that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.  They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Epilogue:
What’s the deal with raspberry filled Paczki’s?  I’ll take the Bavarian filling every time.