This is a tough way to go, but it’s worth it. These are the things I love the most in the world (in the foodstuff category anyway), and the season of Lent is supposed to be about personal sacrifice and circumspection and walking a path of reflection and humility toward resurrection. This Lenten plan also really kicks ass in terms of a healthy weight loss regime. Last year I lost 12 pounds in the 40-some days before Easter.
Just as Noah floated around on the ark for 40 days, and Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years, and Jesus endured temptation in the wilderness for 40 days, the 40 days of Lent are about finding our way back to God and getting a new perspective on things earthly and things spiritual. And so, for these very good reasons, I have been intentional about my Lenten journey, thinking that I am, like, all “in charge” and e’ything.
But, apparently God had a different idea about what my Lenten Journey 2011 should entail.
Sometimes I don’t know what the Big Guy is thinking. Maybe this time he didn’t perceive that my sacrificing the comfort of my usual comfort foods was discomforting enough. So He put me on the list of folks at work who might be losing their jobs soon. About 40 people have lost their jobs here in the past 40 days, and I was recently informed by my higher-ups that I may be included in the next wave of RIFs.
But they are not sure. Maybe I won’t be. We all hope not. But you can’t be too sure.
It all depends on what Congress does in terms of passing a federal budget for fiscal year 2011 (which is halfway over now). It depends on whether the party leadership will continue to bat beratements back and forth like a pathetic birdie in a psychotic game of budget badminton. Or just say the heck with it and take another ten-day vacation. Oh, okay. That’s what they’re doing, while I sit here and twiddle my thumbs, and worry.
Meanwhile, the agency that funds the work that I do… which I love, by the way, and which is really good, important work that helps soldiers coming home from war, by the way, and people with cancer, and children with Autism… meanwhile the agency has no funding for our program, and so they are shutting us down piece by piece. There is nothing else they can do, really. But it totally sucks.
But everything might be fine again next week, and hunky dory, like all this was just a bad dream. Or not. I might have to really scramble to search and find another gig that can cover our health insurance and pay my part of the bills. The job market is still pretty tight, and I might be out of work for a long time… It’s really scary.
So, for Lent this year, God has decided to shake me up in my complacency. He has shifted my entire being into a state of utter insecurity, waiting for forces beyond my control to do something—to act—and decide my fate, my state of mind, my present and future well-being. It’s not Japan, I realize, but it feels pretty darn seismic to me.
Call me Our Lady of Perpetual Uncertainty.
For Lent this year, God has decided to shake me out of my slumber. Out of thinking that I am in control of anything in this life—that my job is the key to my happiness. I thought I was going jog through the season of Lent, shunning my favorite comfort foods. Instead, I am giving up actual comfort. It is a whole different experience of “personal sacrifice” when God makes the selection for you.
I am finding it a challenge just to breathe and move forward, on shaky legs, through this time of extreme uncertainty. Understanding the exquisite, surreal impermanence of the earthly foundation of my daily life—my routine, my livelihood, the pride and personal identity I find in my work—I realize that I have to give it up, let it go.
I’m not in charge. All these things I have counted on without thinking can be gone (or not) in the blink of an eye. In my Lenten journey I am working on practicing how to trust God. I am finding it incredibly difficult, and amazingly rewarding— to open my eyes, glance around me, and see and embrace what is truly important in this life— health, faith, family, friends, hope.
For Lent this year, and previously unbeknownst to me, I am giving up the old notion that I can “stand on my own two feet.”
There are times when that simply won’t work. Like when a magnitude 8.9 earthquake hits your life, and it’s not your fault, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So I’m giving that up for Lent. And I’m leaning on the everlasting arms.
I know I will gain rich spiritual rewards from the Lenten journey God has designed for me. Can’t help it that I want these 40 days to go by quickly… but they probably won’t. And I’m not in charge of that either.
No comments:
Post a Comment