An Ash Wednesday Confession

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar. It’s really a Catholic thing, but lots of Jesus followers participate in the Lenten season leading up to Easter, usually by giving up something for forty days. Chocolate, sugar, coffee, cursing, whatever. 

I try to refrain from an activity that I feel separates me from God or distracts me from my efforts to more fully become who I’m meant to be, i.e., my spiritual journey. Once I gave up alcohol (thinking it dulled my God-given senses and feelings), once saturated fat (to honor the body God gave me), and once driving over the speed limit (busyness and hurry being antithetical to mindfulness). There was really no question what I needed to release this year, but I fought it.

What the Hell is Happening?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’m somewhat addicted to Twitter. Facebook can give my brain tiny shots of dopamine, but it’s nothing compared to Twitter. I blame donald trump, as I do for most things. But seriously, the heightened sense of anxiety I’ve been drowning in for four-plus years, exacerbated by the COVID stress, made me feel that I HAD TO KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING ALL THE TIME. DAY AND NIGHT. To feel safe, I had to be on top of the news minute-by-minute. Twitter also made sure I knew what thousands of people thought about that news minute-by-minute. There’s no downtime on Twitter. When east-coasters go to bed, I’m happy to stay up and either chat with or debate with strangers in California. 

I don’t like Twitter. It brings out the absolute worst in me, aggressive behavior and negative energy. Because I’m afraid. I believe that the people who enable trump — even after January 6th — threaten our democracy. I mean, they are pretending the election was illegitimate, hence so is President Biden. They now have us exactly where Putin wants us. His money was well spent on trump. That’s not an excuse for my unhealthy behavior, it’s just the reason: hyper-vigilance and fear. 

Trying to Be Nicer

Once I deactivated my Twitter account for a month because I didn’t like who I was in that world. I gave up all my followers and started over. I followed other writers, other climate activists, other progressive Christians, and — slowly at first, then more and more — news sources and other “resisters” of trump. Before I knew it, I was back in the political fray. 

What Twitter really is, is a giant gossip echo chamber. Fortunately, I know very few Hollywood types, TV shows, sports figures, and the like. So I ignore that gossip. But the politics is just gossip, too. Mean gossip. And I get right down in the mud. 

This is all my doing. There are lovely people on Twitter, delightful things happening. Book lovers sharing treasures, kind people comforting bereaved strangers, writers encouraging each other. (Though it seems most of the writers are just trying to get others to follow them and/or buy their e-books.) I like a lot of the people. But I too often wander into the dark alleys looking for another dopamine hit. And so beginning today, Ash Wednesday, I’m giving it up for Lent. 

I just heard Rush Limbaugh died. I could have spent a lot of my day opining and arguing with strangers about his legacy. I might have been very clever. I would have got some “likes” and maybe a few follows. But instead I was silent because I wasn’t there. 

I expect I will be anxious with all the free brain-time over the next forty days. So maybe, just maybe, I’ll take a bit of time to think about God and how I can make this world more kind and beautiful.

To dust we shall return

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Ash Wednesday — Evicting Monsters and Embracing Glitter

Lent has begun. As is often the case, I am over-reaching, counting on these forty days to miraculously transform me into a new creation all at once, free from all the parts of myself I don’t want anymore, leaping out of bed at 6  every morning and exclaiming “This is a day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!” and then making a healthy breakfast with no saturated fat or sugar before heading off to the gym and then coming home to meditate and read my Bible before mindfully munching a lunch of sprouts and legumes and walnuts (rich in healthy omega 3 fatty acids).

I doubt it.

It’s not quite that bad this year. My plan is this: I will do my centering prayer meditation every day. I don’t know why this should be such a challenge – I did it daily for five or six years, but I’ve lost the hunger for it. Then I will read twelve pages of The Message Bible in contemporary language. At that rate, I will get through the New Testament in forty days.

In addition — and here is the kicker — I will spend only an hour a day on social media.

Facebook and Twitter flood my being with the lies, vitriol, and bigotry spewing from the White House, and even when the filth is accompanied by witty or wise or motivating commentary from my friends, it is bad for me.

Social media releases brain chemicals that numb my pain and anger, which is nice but not healthy. It allows me to feel as if I’m doing something useful when all I’m doing is losing sleep. But you know that quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one?” That is the real danger of social media for me. It taps into my hatred and contempt, and it makes me mean-spirited and rude.

And that, I do not need. I am sacrificing it for Lent.

I’m not shutting down, I’ll still be marching and organizing and calling Congress — I just need to survive and not become a monster, is all.

I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.

Beginning the Journey: Ash Wednesday

 

Today I want to share this excerpt from an Ash Wednesday poem by my friend Robin Gorsline. Food for thought. To read the full poem and others, please visit his blog .

“I saw an Ash Wednesday drive-by yesterday, a church advertising getting
ashes on your forehead when you drive into their parking lot—
no need to come to service, no need to join in community
prayer. At first, I was repelled, maybe still am, but also I
know that it might help some, who would not otherwise bother,
to pause to consider their lives, even for just a few moments.

And glitter. I like glitter, and am glad that some churches
are combining ash and glitter,
acknowledging that I, and everyone else,
is a complex mixture of saint and sinner.
I remember the year I gave up Lent for Lent.
I was tired of beating myself up for my failings
and decided to spend forty days focusing
on my good qualities. I wanted to put my best foot
forward for Jesus, to be all I could be with him
on the journey to the cross. I did that only once,
but I am glad I did, because it has helped me
ever since have a fuller view of me and my relationship
with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with God the Parent.

So, here I am, here we are, another Ash Wednesday,
another Lent—again invited to walk
the often dusty and bumpy, sometimes crowded and busy,
at other times quiet and lonely,
even on occasion beautiful and merry, roads of life.
I’m a pilgrim, maybe you, too, with few if any answers,
and I’m here for more than sightseeing.”
About this poem . . . I generally approach Ash Wednesday with mixed feelings, aware certainly of my shortcomings, but also not sure how much it helps to focus on them without also seeing my positive qualities, indeed doing that with everyone I encounter and/or care about. I decided that I would not pore over this poem with revision after revision as I often do but let it stand pretty much as it came out—a way of exposing myself for the still being formed person I am.
©Robin Gorsline 2017 FaithfulPoetics.net

Giving It Up For Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season in the Christian church. I wasn’t raised in a religious tradition, and my only childhood experience of Lent was a vague feeling of exclusion when certain kids would come to school with ashes smudged on their foreheads. I eventually became a Christian in my forties after discovering that unlike the judgmental, unloving, money-obsessed preachers on television, the historical Jesus was a rabble rouser who confronted systems of economic injustice and religious oppression and liked to hang out and drink good wine with messed up people like me.

As a new Christian, I was drawn to the idea of sacrifice as a way to focus on God during the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday. The Lenten season mirrors several stories from the Bible: the forty years that the Jewish people followed God through the wilderness and the forty days that the devil tempted Jesus with earthly enticements in the desert. The word Lent comes from lang, meaning long, because the days grow longer in the spring. And when you are engaging in the common practice of “giving up something for Lent,“ the days can seem very long indeed.

I started out just giving up something for the sake of giving up something. When I missed whatever that was — alcohol, saturated fat, cheese — I would turn my mind to God. That was nice, as far as it went, but I wanted something more meaningful.

I’ve since learned that the real point of a Lenten sacrifice is to seriously reflect on an area of your life that you would like to change and then consider what practice you might engage in that would help you move towards that change. The point is not the practice, it is the transformation.

Releasing Fear For Forty Days

This year I’m trying something different: I’m giving up fear for Lent. For forty days, I will work on becoming aware of the many ways that fear rules my life, and I will engage in practices that will help release me from those fears.

I start today. I’m pretty jazzed about this — I think it could be deeply transformational. I’m sure I’ll be blogging about it as I learn thrilling and absolutely fascinating truths about myself, which may to you resemble  tiresome navel gazing. I hope not. We shall see.

Tonight I’ll receive the mark of the ashes on my forehead, reminding me that I came from dust and to dust I will return when my journey here is through. I have only a short time here on earth to become the person I was born to be, and I would rather be led by love than driven by fear.

A Poem I Did Not Write

For Ash Wednesday, I offer this excerpt from a lovely Lenten poem by Joyce Rupp called Prayer of One Who Feels Lost:

†††

I want to be more but I fight the growing.

I want to be new but I hang on to the old.

I want to live but I won’t face the dying.

I want to be whole but cannot bear

To gather up the pieces into one.

 †††

Is it that I refuse to be out of control,

To let the tears take their humbling journey,

To allow my spirit to feel its depression,

To stay with the insecurity of “no home”?

 †††

Now is the time. You call to me,

Begging me to let you have my life,

Inviting me to taste the darkness

So I can be filled with the light,

Allowing me to lose my direction

So that I will find my way home to you.

 †††

Changing Your Mind?

This week is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. And I think it’s downright sinful that non-Christians should be excluded from one of my favorite seasons. It’s like Christmas – I celebrate the birth of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy a season of giving and celebration.

OK, so forty days of self-denial, sacrifice, and penitence might not be as much fun as a season of presents and parties and spiked eggnog. But bear with me.

The Burden of Shame

Judging from the stats and comments on my blog, people are very interested in the issues of shame, guilt, and making amends. I got more comments from friends about my post Imagine Apologizing than anything else I’ve written, and you would be surprised how often people Google the phrase “What Color is Shame?” and end up at my post by that name. I get several every week.

Weird, right? What’s that about?

I’m glad you asked.

I think that even the non-God-inclined sense that the burdens of shame and guilt call for something beyond our brains. They seek relief in something deeper — maybe in something sensory, like color?

By their very nature, shame and guilt are things that people don’t talk about easily. That’s why they weigh so much. We try to carry them all by ourselves. We trip about on the internet, looking for answers in stranger’s blogs.

Sacks of Shame

Turning Around

It makes sense that with this kind of human longing for relief or redemption – whatever you want to call it – most major religions include a season of self-examination and repentance.

(By the way, the concept of repentance isn’t as burdensome as it sounds, all sackcloth and ashy. It basically means to turn around or to change your mind.)

We need to deal with our mistakes and regrets before we can be at peace and move on, but that’s not too easy if we intend to commit the same offense again. That’s where a change of mind comes in – repentance.

My point here is that whether you are religious or not, you could probably benefit from an intentional season of repentance. Set aside some time, perhaps getting away by yourself for a day or two, to reflect on the ways you fall short of who you would like to be. Take along a journal so you don’t conveniently forget any commitments you make to yourself.

You might consider doing without something for a period of time – fasting from food, television, social media, caffeine, gossip, or alcohol. Stripping away some of the things you think are oh-so-important can remind you of what actually *is* important.

What’s Lent, Anyway?

I won’t go into the details of Lent as a Christian practice. There is plenty written on that – here is one interesting history. The forty-day season of self-sacrifice and fasting leading up to Easter Sunday has been around longer than any denomination, since near the beginning of the faith. The concept of a season of repentance, teshuva, is deeply rooted in the Hebrew faith, from which Christianity sprang.

Personally, I never observed Lent until about ten years ago. I wasn’t raised in a religious tradition, and my only childhood experience of Lent was feeling left out when certain kids would come to school with smudges on their foreheads.

I became a Christian in my late thirties when I discovered that, unlike the nasty, judgmental TV preachers, the historical Jesus was a rabble rouser who confronted systems of economic injustice and religious oppression and liked to hang out and drink good wine with imperfect people like me.

I liked the idea of spiritual practices to help me focus on God during the forty days leading up to Easter. Over the years, I’ve given up eating after sundown, drinking alcohol (during which time I found my friends to be a lot less entertaining), saturated fat (I nearly starved — did you know a BANANA contains saturated fat?), and driving above the speed limit.

The speed limit endeavor was the worst. The word Lent comes from lang, meaning long, because the days grow longer in the spring. And believe me, when you’re toodling along at 55 mph on the frenzied Washington Beltway, the days seem very long indeed.

So – I’m not sure what I’m doing for Lent yet this year. No doubt some fasting and more dedicated meditation, but probably something else as well. There’s a good chance I’ll write about it, because I find there is a phase during which I obsess about my “sacrifice” before I settle in and focus on deeper pursuits. But perhaps you won’t be reading those posts, as you may have given up messing about online for Lent.

Lenten blessings to you, no matter your faith or beliefs.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)