I am still learning how to “practice” Lent. Evidence of my ignorance and inexperience is that I use the verb “practice” —it should probably be “observe.”
However “practice” really is the verb I would apply to the ways I’ve participated in Lent in recent years. My first Lent, I was swept up in the wonder of the season on Ash Wednesday and promptly vowed to give up — if I’m remembering correctly — sweets and meat? At the time I was not well-versed in nutrition, so 50 days later, Easter Sunday saw a sugar-hungry and likely protein-deficient Hannah (and not, for the first time, because of the quality of my school’s cafeteria food). Three bites into a single piece of carrot cake gave me a sugar rush and I had to lay down and watch The Incredibles in commemoration of Christ’s rising from the dead.
“Practice.”
In subsequent years I’ve given up other combinations of foods — also usually decided day of, and having learned my lesson from the Carrot Cake Debacle, I’ve taken Sundays as “Feast Days”.
When speaking of Lent, it is usually said to consider giving something up and adding something in. Focused on giving something up, I’ve not been great about adding something in — whether it be new prayer times, renewed vigor for daily devotionals, regular silent retreats, or other. And, if I’m honest, the intention behind giving something up left something to be desired as well.
In thinking about Lent this year, I tried to spend more time making space to examine myself and listen to God — I wanted this season to be a special time of focus. I wanted to dedicate 50~ days reflecting on the same thing. Or, at least, start the season with that one thing and see where God takes me.
I want to be clear that there is nothing magical about fasting or Lent or the “motions” of a spiritual practice. It’s a tool. A tool that can be meaningful when used correctly. I can’t wrestle with God the same way that Jacob did and force Him to bless my fasting and gives me the answers I wanted. However, I could offer this time as a gift, and ask for His blessing. Invite Him in.
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Idols. I remember as a child thinking of idols strictly in a literal, Ancient context. They were creepy carved images that misled people bowed down to and burned incense and killed animals in front of. Weird, but not something I was afraid of accidentally falling into. At some point in later childhood, probably after a Sunday or two sitting through the sermon instead of going to Sunday school, I was introduced to the abstract concept of idols – money, power, titles (to be read in Steve Martin/Martin Short voices from the Prince of Egypt). Cool, I’m 10 years old. The money I made selling lemonade to whoever drove down the street of a secluded suburb street on a weekday morning didn’t strike me as an immediate concern for taking the place of God in my life. Again, I felt pretty fortified against idol worship.
However that’s the very thing that was swirling in my mind in preparation for Lent.
I care so much what people think about me. Not because of them, but because of me — it gives me my identity. How much do I crave recognition — at work for projects well-done? Or at home for doing an extra chore or making an extra funny comment?
When will I feel like a real person – a real adult? What am I waiting for? A particular title? A salary? A relationship In school it used to be grades, GPA, leadership titles, number of friends or social circles, and extra curricular involvement. Is this really that different? Will I be happy when I get x?
Isn’t that what an idol is? It takes the place of God. My identify should flow from who I am in Christ and nothing else.
Yikes. I thought I had tidily squared that away as ambition or goal-making or some other euphemism that made it okay for my identity to flow directly from anything but God. I was giving everything to it — my thoughts, my time, my schedule, my conversations. It was everything. Do not want.
What I do want, is for Christ to be everything.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Galatians 2:20
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Irish Prayer, Attributed to St. Patrick
Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit,
Christ when I stand,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I say that’s what I believe — but do I really live that way? Do I think that way? Do I talk that way? Am I even being intentional about making every thought captive, centering my days around Christ, allowing how I see myself to not be formed by what others say about or see in me — but solely from how He sees me?
So, Lent 2020: Spring Cleaning. This is not the forum to discuss what I’m giving up or adding in but I can say that I’m trying to make space. Clear out the chaff, and make room for Christ.
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Several readings have guided me so far in Lent, I’d like to share them with you. They include some bolded highlights and some sparse commentary at the end.
The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
Isaiah 44:13-20
To borrow heavily from the person I heard share this passage and their commentary on it, there are two things that are most striking to me.
(1) The man makes the idol himself. He is choosing to use his time and talent on this — not on worshipping the true God. He is making something to admire his own handiwork and, in a sense, worship himself — not his Creator.
(2) His idol is fleeting. The idol made of wood is made of the same thing that burns in the fire that he makes his food over. It is impermanent, reflecting the importance of a man’s life, wasted over serving false gods.
“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the Lord?“Is not this the fast that I choose:
Isaiah 58:1-12
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.
Just look at the poetry. He takes away the yoke.
When despair for the world grows in me
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
To me this passage speaks to what happens when, exhausted, we pry ourselves away from the tiring things of life that greedily keep our gaze down and our defenses up — the news cycle, persistent calls of the Screen, traffic, unpleasant exchanges, and hard phone calls —and instead make space to appreciate the goodness that God has made for us, often simple things easily overlooked. What clarity and perspective, what freedom and lightness, He has for us.
Perspective. Practice.
Tepid Takes 