What I Love About the Season to Come

 Confession is good for the soul.  I stink at fasting.  Really.  I forget.  I overpromise God and I fail...a lot.  If we measure Lent by adhering to one's promise to God, I am a faithless human being most of the time...and Lent, being bigger than my grandest ambitions is a great teacher of humility, because my flesh is weak weak weak.   

Success at Lent measured by letting God lead me, those stick out like jewels...volunteering in college one year, going to daily mass another, calling my sister every day to say a "Hail Mary," and one year (just one), where I gave up chocolate for the whole year, as a form of prayer.  So right now, you'll see tons of articles about "how to make this the best Lent ever" and "On beyond chocolate..." and the like.   I'm going to tell you, discernment about what God wants to give you, is part of the process.   My best Lenten plans have come from God, not me.   

What Lent teaches you, depends upon how much you're willing to listen.  Lent at the start typically has me doing a lot of talking.   This year I'm going to...and I pile on..and I read an article and that sounds good so I add to it...and I think of something I've been meaning to do, and I add it, and my Lenten promises become a virtual buffet of spiritual ambition. What all my Lents up to now have taught me, is I haven't changed since elementary school.  Sherry is very enthusiastic and creative, but she talks in class.  

Fortumately, I haven't worn out Christ like I did my teachers during school.   

One thing I know, often what God wants to tell us is the opposite of our plans.  So I'm going to try and do the opposite of my normal approach of picking everything from the menu.   I'm picking one thing.  I'm also normally talk or write of my plans for Lent.  It's a natural response of a writer, to use everything as grist for the mill.  Surrendering that temptation, to talk about it, to share it, is part of the process of trying to invert or subvert my own proclivities.  

My writing brain is already pitching a royal fit. If you don't write it down, you won't remember it.  If you don't tell others, they won't remind you.   I already know, it's the right call because of that reaction.  So, if you want to know what I love about Lent, it's that it is always an opportunity to be led, we just have to follow, and trust that this desert season is necessary for our souls, and the one leading us, will see us through safely if we allow Him.   

Get ready for Lent. Ash Wednesday is February 17th.   Ask God to help you listen and follow Him into the desert.  

What We've Lost

It is a season of loss, and I know it.  That's why I make my kids come up with something each night at dinner, because gratitude is easy when there's lots to be thankful for, it's harder when there is less.  I want them to practice while there is still far more.  They grieve even if they don't know it,is waht they are doing, over prom, over graduation, over friends, over trips to the store, music lessons, track meets, birthday parties, and yes, even mass with Mom and Dad.  They will miss all the people who filled their lives on a daily basis until March 13th.  

Reading the news and following what's going on in Italy, I worry about the far less we will face in the coming months.  

I miss work, and I know most of us do, and most of us are applying all our mental muscles to carving out some normal to make this new not normal less strange.  The losses must be acknowledged, it is part of the clearing out process.  So I will also ask them each night, what they miss and try to give everyone a means to remedy some of that via tech, via talking, via alternatives.  Knowing what they're grieving today helps too because the little things are going to matter more.   


All the comforts of ordinariness in our lives, of routine, of value through our own business, of community by mere proximity, and of entertainment substituting for joy, have been revealed as what they aren't by their absence.   This is one hell of a Lent but we have been kicked out of Fake Eden, and are being invited into a better one even in this time of social distancing.   

We must go deeper, and this unknowable desert we're wandering into, has a point.  It is to meet God face to face. Up until now, we could find Him easily, in the Sacraments.  Now, we must all seek.   

God has not been taken away.  We've just discovered all the ways in which we do not see Him. 
The other thing we've lost, is our capacity to use shortcuts both to distract and to see Him.  

We will have to begin responding to all His invitations into friendship through acts of the will.  We can no longer be organic in our responses, we must be deliberate. 

I used to donate to the Soup Kitchen when they held their annual drive, because someone reminded me, "They're doing that."  Now, it must be a willful choice. Everything is now a willful choice.  Writing, prayer, exercise, work, presence, all of it is now something which requires assent.  We cannot trust to the routine to make sure these things happen. We also know, it is hard, because we are still seeking to stay attatched to the way things were but won't be again for some time. 

Perhaps that's the real reality Lent seeks to teach us as a season, we should not be content with being comfortable with our relationship with God. We can rest in Him, but we are nto to rest in our seeking. 

Fathers For Good

The month of March, I'm writing pieces for the Knights of Columbus over at Fathers For Good.   Here's my first offering,  I chose to focus my pieces on family life as part of the Lenten season.  Please, click on the link and if you like it, share  Patient Progress.