Mercy Not Sacrifice
It’s Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, which can be an awkward time for a campus minister. Many of the students I know will be drinking a lot during the next week. I will be having a few drinks myself. I’m also going to go to parades with students where I will abstain from drinking. Some Christian students I know see it as necessary to their Christian discipleship to give up alcohol. I deeply respect that, but I’m not going to declare that a hard and fast rule because I’ve been told that other students have stopped going to church because they felt guilty about drinking. So instead, I thought I would offer some reflective questions to ponder as you think about the choices you make during Mardi Gras season or any other party.
1) Are you celebrating or self-medicating?
Though I’m not an alcoholic, I have a problem with using alcohol to self-medicate for my social anxiety. When I go to a gathering with a lot of people I don’t know, I drink more than I should. I’m not having fun; I’m doing it to numb myself enough to relax. It’s completely different when I’m somewhere with people I know and love, and the drinks are just part of relishing a festive environment. I’m not saying this to shame anybody else with anxiety. But if you’re going out to be in a crowded place with a bunch of strangers because you think you’re supposed to, then give yourself permission to socialize in a way that doesn’t trigger you. It’s totally okay to be a person who just likes hanging around small groups of people in quiet, sober, intimate places.
2) Are you creating authentic connections with other people?
To what degree are your friendships defined by partying? Are the people you party with also people you can be real with? Are they willing to spend time with you just being boring (and sober) together? When you party, do you find yourself waking up in bed with strangers the next day? I’ve done that before. And I was damaged by doing it. It certainly didn’t make me feel any less lonely. All human beings need authentic connection with others. Inauthentic intimacies with strangers make intimacy into a farce and damage our ability to connect deeply with other people.
3) Are you safe?
Every mind-altering substance that you put in your body makes it easier for you to make unsafe choices. I had a really bad night when I was in college. I had gotten really drunk and high, and I invited a girl back to my room. She didn’t want to do things that I wanted to do. I was overly aggressive and disrespectful to what she was communicating, so she basically had to flee my room. My behavior that night ruined several friendships. Wherever you draw the line on sexual intimacy, it should absolutely not happen when either or both parties are incapable of consent and intentionality. There are tons of other unsafe choices that people make when they compromise their ability to think clearly.
4) Are you able to tend to others’ needs?
Jesus partied with sinners. That’s what his fellow rabbis originally criticized him for doing. But the reason Jesus partied with people was the same reason he did everything: to show solidarity. Jesus’ life was an embodiment of perfect hospitality for other people. If you’re going to party and you’re a Christian, then you need to emulate Jesus’ concern for the other. As Christians, whenever we’re in any social space, we should make ourselves responsible to the degree possible for making sure that everyone else is welcome and safe. If you get really hammered and start puking in the bathroom, you’re not available to be Christ to other people. The most Christlike thing you can do at a party is to be the designated driver so that nobody tries to drive home drunk. At the very least, don’t compromise yourself to the degree that you can’t be of any help to others.
5) Can you fast when you’re done feasting?
One of the most spiritually therapeutic practices I’ve discovered in the last five years is fasting. I do it every Monday and Friday until dinnertime. The hunger that I feel creates sacred space in an otherwise chaotically busy and stressful life. It’s one of the most important coping mechanisms I’ve discovered for my anxiety. Though it might seem like fasting is a denial of my physicality, the opposite is true: it awakens my body from the way that my gluttony has numbed it. The Carnival season that culminates in Mardi Gras is a legitimate part of the Christian calendar. It’s a season of feasting and rejoicing in the newborn king Jesus. This season of feasting is followed by the season of fasting during Lent. We need both. We need to dance and jump around at parties, and we need to walk quietly in the park by ourselves. So recognize your feasting as a necessary component of your spirituality and complement it with forty days of some form of fasting (it doesn’t have to be food!) beginning on Ash Wednesday this February 10th. Then Easter will come and it will be time to feast again.
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