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