It was a chance to take stock of how we live our lives. Many people made big changes. Some moved. Some quit or changed jobs. With nothing but emptiness to fill the normally busy loud hum of routine, we were left to face our lives on a deeper level.
I remember feeling like everyone got mandatory lent that year. We all gave up something. We gave up precious things - gathering in community for worship and celebration, visiting loved ones, milestone celebrations. We gave up annoying things like commutes and trivial social obligations. We gave up routine and normal. Pickups and drop offs, sports practices and recitals. We gave up shopping and music and amusement parks. We gave up school and daycare. We found time. Empty time and the people in the house that lived with us.
I think the lenten practice of fasting is misunderstood. It is a very meaningful practice for me and every year, I peel back new layers to understand the spiritual practice of fasting. At first, I thought Lent was about giving up something that was kind of bad for you.
"Chocolate is just a little sinful. I'll give it up for these days. "
But Lent is not some sort of punishment, removing sinful things from life. As I got deeper, I understood fasting to create a gap that changes life in unexpected ways.
Fasting creates hunger. Looking at hunger with a sort of curiosity opens me to understand my heart. If I give up music, I am hungry for beauty. If I give up lists, I am hungry for control. This exploring of hunger is a searching of the heart.
Fasting also creates space. There is a void. I give up music, I have ears to hear something else, even the silence. I give up lists, I have time that is normally spent making lists.
Fasting pushes me to explore my human nature, how I rub up against the rules, even arbitrary rules that I make for myself. It releases rebellion in me and pride and piety. I ride round and round struggling with myself until Lent is over
2020 was global Lent. We gave up things big and small. By choice or not by choice. We struggled with hunger for the things we missed. We struggled with the space made by the shift in our routine. We struggled with human nature, rebellion, pride, piety and hypocrisy. We came together and we fell apart.
Each in our own small worlds wrestling with our own things. It was heavy -- many of us also experienced loss, grief, anxiety, financial difficulties and certainly a very unsettling amount of uncertainty.
Even though I didn't struggle like many people did, it was deeply uncomfortable. For me, I was used to lots of other people working with my children -- therapists, teachers, daycare providers. Suddenly, it was just me. I had to do all the things. I had to be all the things for them. I had to enter into deeper relationship with each of them -- I had to learn how much math they each knew or didn't. I had to figure out strategies to meet developmental milestones. I had to keep them busy and happy all day.
In the process, though, I developed a deeper appreciation for the call to motherhood and what a holy vocation it is. I had to re-evaluate priorities and ended up deciding to leave work because my children and my mental and physical health were a higher priority. I bent myself around the empty space and created a little world for my children within our home. However long the world was on its head, I was determined to have a place for them to thrive.
I found myself permanently changed. Life has finally returned to normal. I still run into masks and other 2020 momentos cleaning out cars and closets.
I could write volumes about how 2020 impacted me, my family, the world around me. I'm sure you could too.
It is something we all share. Our stories combined to write history of this Era as the great depression shaped the lives of our parents or grandparents or maybe even great grand parents. May we let ourselves lean into the spiritual learnings that can come from reflecting on and being changed by such a large event.
I mentioned before that Ulrich has taken up reading the works of CS Lewis for Lent this year. Most of his work was written in the small period of time during World War 2. Other theologians and spiritual writers also produced great works during that time. Many great spiritual works, including sections of the old and new testament were written during periods of historical upheaval or suffering.
Shifts and disruptions like those we experienced during the pandemic create space for us to explore life more deeply. And while life seems to be back to normal, I think our hearts and minds are still processing.
Lent... that lasts a whole year.... is bound to change us.
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