Wednesday, March 26, 2014

So let me tell you about my Lent.

After going on and in my last post about how we might use the Lenten season to enrich our faith and our lives, I am embarrassed to say, I haven't.  

As I write this, I am huddled on love seat facing the wood stove. I feel lousy. Periodically, I get up and try and get the fire to perk up enough to take the chill off the air. I cough, which makes me feel worse. The weather has turned cold again - it snowed yesterday, for like the four thousandth time this season.  Except that it's next season - Spring has already happened! It's almost April, so what the heck?

From Rabbit Fire (Warner Brothers, 1951),
Chuck Jones, director

Friends, this how I get when I'm sick. I like to think of it as unvarnished honesty, but those closest to me just call me a whiny baby. The fact is, I have pneumonia. According to those who know such things, pneumonia is serious; it's something one can actually die from. I've had it before. 

How did I get pneumonia, you might ask, and I would probably shrug my shoulders and mumble something inarticulate, or perhaps blame all those people with whom I have contact at the church, or at the hospital. But deep down, I know how this happened - how this always happens; it happens because I don't care.

An interesting phrase, I don't care; it conjures up images of selfish brats, thoughtless narcissists, sociopaths. And yet, on some level, it describes all of us: there are certain things that interest us not in the least - the results of the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Final, perhaps (South Africa beat Pakistan), or how to prepare Egg in Aspic (what is aspic, anyway?) And that's OK.

Who thought this was a good idea?
photo by Michael Newman
        
There are many times, though, when I don't care really means I don't care...enough. Often, the word should creeps into the conversation: I should be more interested in what's happening in my community; I should be better informed about world events; I should be more proactive when it comes to my health. It's not that we don't care about these things; we just care more about something else, and that makes us uncomfortable. Take my health.

Handsome devil, eh?

Once upon a time, I was a reasonably healthy young collegiate. I walked up hill and down, went to class, mostly, played basketball a lot; I had hair. Of course, I ate and drank like a college student; that is, whatever I wanted and could afford. I slept like a college student; that is, not enough and at odd hours. And I lived on the college student's calendar: burn the candle at both ends AND in the middle, then recover over break.  It's not as if I didn't care; this way of life seemed to serve me well, allowing me to follow my bliss, while still managing to squeak through with a B.A. 

But then, I looked up and just like that! college was over. I found myself in the real world, with an adult's metabolism and a teenager's sense of responsibility. Working, attending Seminary, starting a family; for almost thirty years, it seems I have been playing catch up: picking up habits more easily learned in one's youth; travelling time after time down the same unproductive paths; learning from experiences that have too often been painful, expensive and embarrassing. My weight has been up and down, and up again; my physical condition has gone from adequate, to pretty good, to wretched. I find myself arising earlier as I age, but no happier to see the morning; I pray more, but find my prayers more distracted than ever.

The fact is, I have just entered my fifty first year, and I am in deplorable condition. Even before the whole pneumonia thing, I felt lousy; overweight and out of shape. It's not as if I don't care whether I live or die; I do. But there always seems to be something else to take care of first, something to distract me from what I know is important, some exception that needs to be made. I'm too busy to eat right; too tired to exercise; too distracted to just be still and pray. After a lifetime of caring for others, I have come to realize I don't really care about myself. And that is wrong.

Sitting here on this loveseat, coughing, I am ashamed - not because I have ill treated this temple of God that is by body (although I have), but because in caring so little about my own health, I have put at risk all the things I though I cared about more: my family, my ministry, my relationship with God. This is sin, and it is here, fat and coughing and overburdened, that I think I have finally begun my observance of Lent.

Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.     James 4: 4-10