Let me just say up front that writing about Lent feels a little to me like saying that I am going to contribute to the writing of a book of rules on environmental safety for an interstate project around Los Angeles. I know someone who could write much about environmental safety in that context, and it is something that my brother cares about greatly and makes a guiding factor in the way he lives his life and cares for his family. I know that it matters, but all I can tell you about it is that taking major precautions against stepping bare‐footed on a broken light bulb containing mercury is a really, really good idea.
Another irony of my writing about Lent is that I would never be described by anyone who knows me as liturgical. Additionally, until recent years, I have known little more about Lent than what I may have heard mentioned by people on the relational fringes of my life. I have great respect for the history of church liturgy and liturgical worship, but I am not drawn to it. I am a Protestant Christian, a follower of Jesus and absolute believer in God, and I really like reading about when Jesus was out walking on water, alone, or going up to the mountains to pray, alone. This is much more my style. I would rather look at the mountains than a cathedral ceiling any day. (In addition, I completely missed out on Fat Tuesday, and it almost never occurs to me to eat fish on Fridays.) But, while the whole idea of observing and honoring the Church calendar is fairly new to me, and engaging in periods of heightened awareness and introspection leading up to major church holidays has been a gradual process, it is one I have actually come to value very much.
I have seriously considered the idea of giving up something for Lent only in the past few years, and last year was the first year I committed: I decided to give up clutter. Clutter in my house, in my mind, and the unseen emotional clutter that can really pile up and get in the way of a lot of good things. I would not say that last year’s Lent resolution was an abysmal failure; I also would not say that it was a raging success. I would say that some of the clutter lessened, and I spent a lot of time thinking about what things are really important to me and about what things God has called me to do and how clutter in my life was affecting or keeping me from them.
This year, I decided to give up fiction. In its most obvious forms, I temporarily stopped reading or watching fiction. Fiction, for me, is very entertaining. It distracts me from the monotony of daily chores, and many days, I crave that. Sometimes I long to be distracted from getting up in the morning already feeling behind, changing diapers, searching for matching shoes and clothes, and making sure that 18 plates of food are prepared every day, not including snacks. And, in its less obvious forms, I have sought to give up fiction in my thoughts, beliefs and relationships.
I have spent much more time than I otherwise would have studying history, particularly the history of this country. I haven’t found anything to support the ideals I’ve heard at times ‐ that our “founding fathers” were motivated primarily by morality, faithfulness, fairness, and love for God. The events leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Revolutionary War seem to have had very little to do with God or religious freedom and everything to do with money, fame, and national independence. As evidenced by Benjamin Franklin’s extensive political bridge‐building with France on our behalf during the Revolutionary War, it seems we have been collectively viewed by other nations as “rude, loud Americans” since our country’s inception. Not to mention our national debt, without which this country could not have even started. And about slavery. The “founding fathers” chose, at two different pivotal points, to maintain the practice of slavery. Not because they thought the Bible advocated the institution, but because their lifestyle could not survive without it (in case you think I’m being unfair in my understanding, they did count each slave as 3/5 of a person for tax purposes). Those who initially shaped the formation of this country propelled our nation forward carrying the weight of collective sin whose physical bond would be broken only through continued wars, and whose spiritual, emotional, economic and social bonds have yet to be broken.
Unpredictable events have taken place during this Lent season that I have had to face as honestly as possible, while I would have loved to read or watch something untrue just to at least take the edge off. There were two deaths that I know will never leave me. The first was of a 3‐year‐old girl. While I didn’t know her or her family personally, some of our family did, and I felt the weight of her unexpected death as though I had known her well. The loss felt devastating, and I think of her family every day and pray for them as they move forward as a family who has lost a child. The other was the death of a 17‐year‐old young man. I did not know him or his family, either, but his needless death felt devastating, and I think of his family every day as they also move forward as a family who has lost a child. What has burdened me beyond the tragedy of Treyvon Martin’s death has been the spotlight it has shone on the continued divisiveness, anger, and eye‐for‐eye violence raging deeply within our nation, even among those of us who Christ said would be known by our love.
My attempt to let go of fiction for a time has made me notice how fictitious many of our conversations can be, and how even the more bold among us, I believe, can be masters of a bluntness that feels like truth without ever actually crossing over into helpful honesty. Rather, we metaphorically “throw up” all over everyone in the room and then walk away, leaving each person to fend for himself in dealing with the clean‐up. My experience is that social media has just exacerbated this tendency, and I have wrestled within myself many times over whether to just shut down my Facebook page, return the faceless, voiceless jab with one of my own, or actually do the work of seeking out the person who, at the end of the day, I really care about, to have a real conversation that could be healing for both of us. It sounds like a simple choice, but the reality of our world shows that it is not. I feel saddened by the roles that jealousy and competitiveness play in our relationships and frustrated by how we try to pretend that they don’t.
So, I am ending this season of Lent feeling both relieved and grateful. I am relieved for this season’s particular intensity to come to an end, but I am grateful for what I have gained through the process. I hope for more truthful relationships in which we can acknowledge that there is enough beauty to go around, and that none of us need to try to take each other’s. I am more than ready for Easter – I am eager to celebrate the hope that death will end. I am ready to live more honestly, and in doing so, to find myself much more able to let joy rise to the surface, and to live in it.
By Melissa Ledbetter
