Lent is Not Self-Help

I'm spectacularly bad at giving things up for Lent.

Truthfully, I'm pretty bad at any sort of regular Lenten discipline at all, except going to Wednesday evening services, which is required because I am the pastor.  I keep thinking that it would be good if we got one of those cardboard banks for Lent and practiced giving a special offering for a particular cause, but I haven't gotten around to doing it.  One of these years...

But I digress.  Mostly, this is about my inability to give something up for Lent.  Partly this is a failure of imagination:  as Lent draws hear,  I think:  what would be a good thing for me to give up this year?  And most of the time, I can't come up with anything that I would consider interesting.  There was one year that I gave up buying books for Lent, which turned out to be excruciating, which means it was a good idea.  Right?

I also remember one Wednesday morning early when I was taking the garbage out to the curb.  It was a snowy, icy, cold morning in Minnesota, and suddenly I realized that it was Ash Wednesday (which I did actually know) and that I did not know what I was going to give up for Lent.  And I thought, what if I get rid of one thing a day for forty days?  That was a really good idea, theologically, I had to admit.  But logistically, it was not as easy as it sounded.  Bags of things accumulated before I got them to the thrift store.

Most of the time though, I don't manage giving something up for Lent.  It was not a part of my practice growing up.  I don't automatically think of it.  I don't think it's a bad idea, though.  I like the idea of finding some special way to mark the forty days before Easter.

I think that one of my problems is that when I think about what I should give up, it's usually something bad for me.  Like sugary treats, or potato chips, or soda (although I don't drink soda, so there's that.)  Then I start thinking of Lent as some sort of self-improvement project, a way to lose weight, or change a bad habit, at least temporarily.

Don't get me wrong:  I think changing bad habits is a good idea.  I think becoming healthier is a great idea.

I just don't think that's what Lent is for.

I think that Lent is more about failure than success.  Maybe the point about giving things up (if you do) is not to be so good at it.  Maybe the point is to come face to face with the grace of God, the grace that only failures need.  All of you who can make it on your own need not apply.

Lent is about getting ready for Easter, getting ready for not only Jesus' resurrection, but our own.  I am not sure what is the best way to get ready for that, except living and paying attention, and being honest.

The Preacher, Not Preaching

It is Saturday evening.  I'm not preaching again this weekend.  It feels odd, not exactly like a vacation (which it is not) but more like my job description suddenly changed, or someone moved around the days of the week without telling me, or I have forgotten a large appointment in my weekly calendar.

The first time it felt odd was when the preaching schedule came out.  A whole month without preaching.  My knee jerked.  "What am I going to do?" was the first thought in my head.  Not that there isn't plenty to do, even without preaching, but I have grown to believe that preaching regularly sort of justifies my existence.  The reading and the studying and the thinking and the conversations all give shape to my week.  I end up seeing the world in a different way, bringing the scripture readings to the world and the people I know.

The second time it felt odd was on Wednesday, when I realized that I hadn't really studied the scriptures for a few days.  This should not be so, I thought; the discipline of scripture reading is not only for the sake of preaching.  But what should I study?

Why not the scripture readings for this week? I answered, after a short period of angst.  So there I was, at noon on Wednesday, sitting in the common area at our local mall, eating my tuna sandwich and reading the Beatitudes that I would not preach on, hearing the words in my mind, not just the familiar words of uncommon blessing, but also the words about the salt and the light and how our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, which sort of blows my mind, no matter how many times I read it.  I have a hard time quantifying righteousness, I realize.  I actually don't think you can measure righteousness.  I don't think you can measure grace either.  I just think this.  I wonder if I am right.

And now, here I am, on Saturday night.  I am not praying for the Holy Spirit to enliven the words I have written, and I am not wondering whether I should re-write a few of them.  I am not struggling for a little last-minute inspiration.  I am not wondering whether I missed the Spirit this week.

It feels different:  not good, not bad:  just different.

There are times when I wonder what it would be like to have a different weekly schedule, and a different Sunday discipline.  I wonder how it would feel to get up and turn on the radio, and open up the newspaper and fix a pot of coffee, to sit around in my bathrobe and fix scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls for my family.  Or, I wonder what it would be like to go the bookstore instead of the sanctuary on Sunday morning, to commune alone with books and other people and a gourmet coffee.  I don't say this with judgment, and not a wistfulness either.  It is not that I wish for anyone else's life.  I am just curious sometimes, about how it would feel to have a different rhythm, with no preaching.

Lex orandi, lex credendi -- as we pray, so we believe -- I learned this saying long ago in seminary, but I wonder if it applies to more than prayer, or if prayer is perhaps more expansive than I used to think.  How do the rhythms of my life define what I believe, who and what I trust, and what are my priorities?

All these questions I am considering in the darkness of a Saturday evening, when tomorrow I am not preaching.

Giving Thanks

Lately, I am late.  That is to say, I haven't been timely.  I have thought about things to say about current events, but it seems these "things to say" occur to me after the moment of interest has passed.

So it is with Thanksgiving, which was yesterday.

It seems to me that thanksgiving is an art.  It is not as easy as it looks, and even harder to do well.  So, many of my friends have been posting one thing each day that they are grateful for, and others have not participated because they fear a sort of gluttony of gratitude, where the thanksgivings begin looking more and more like those Christmas letters you receive where it seems that the whole family, including the dog, has been airbrushed.  (There is an art to those yearly Christmas letters, as well, but, that's a topic for another day.)  None of the thanksgivings I have read this year sounded airbrushed to me.  One of my friends did make me laugh one day.  She was on her 44th day of thanksgiving (she took a slightly longer time frame than the rest of us), and she gave thanks that she had not been abducted by aliens during the past year.

Like I said, thanksgiving is an art.  It's not as easy as it looks.  It is even harder to do well, and keep doing, every single day.  Five things come to mind that help:

1.  Creativity.  It helps to have a skewed view of the world, where you can be grateful that you were not abducted by aliens, for example.  It helps to be able to stand on your head as well, sometimes, at least figuratively.  Yesterday at thanksgiving dinner there were a number of adults of all ages, but only one small child.  But she set a place for her imaginary friend, Dora.  So I give thanks for her, and her friend, and the small yellow plate at the end of the table.

2.  Mindfulness.  It helps to pay attention, although it is no mean feat in this busy and distracting world of ours.  Sometimes, though, the distractions that feed gratitude, as when a woman came into my office this morning in tears, asking me to pray for her and her family.  Then I was grateful that I was in the office, grateful for the gift of tears, even grateful for my own grieving that helped me to be present with her.

3.  Simplicity.  Rather than the big things, give thanks for little things, both seen and unseen:  a cup of tea, the color green, air, an old photograph.  Take time to taste, to smell, to see, to hear, to touch.  I sometimes realize that I eat without really tasting my food, after the first bite, much less taking time to give thanks for it.  It is sort of ironic given the fact that every meal begins with saying grace.

4.  Empathy. Can we give thanks in such a way that it doesn't sound like we are so grateful that we are not in someone else's shoes?  Be grateful for a home, and then work to end homelessness.  Be grateful for your thanksgiving table, and work to end hunger.  It also helps to widen our circles of relationships and hear stories from people we do not yet know.

5.  Honesty.  There are days when it is really hard to give thanks, days when you know you have let someone else down, or someone has let you down, when you are more aware of deficiencies than your gifts, when pain is raw and beauty is overcast with grief.  Thanksgiving that does not acknowledge all of our lives is not true, or really gracious.

Thanksgiving is an art.  I am not sure that I am very good at it.  But I will try to keep my eyes peeled, by ears and my heart open, my hands empty.