This morning, I woke and felt like somehow, I’d missed Lent even though it only started last week. I’d resolved to stop doom scrolling, and found myself wedded to the phone more than ever over the weekend. Fasting from bread? I forgot on Saturday and ate tortillas. Prayer? Yes, some, here and there, more, a fledgling step towards God, and back steps too. My writing sits waiting for me to hit it again even as I urge my students to set a word count and stick to it. So I am here trying again, to set a word count and stick to it.
But writing alone is insufficient, it needs to mean something, to talk about what we need in this world. More beauty, more hope, more forgiveness, more mercy, more love, and we need all of it more than we need any of what the news saturates us with each day.
So I looked at my day, what did I do, how was it moving towards or away from God. I taught students, fed my children, filled the car up with gas, took care of the banking, stopped at CVS for my prescriptions and went to the dentist to get a crown. Made dinner, took care of the dog, did Duo Lingo and washed the dishes with my husband while we danced to various tunes Alexa agreed to play. I also read the paper and while I feel more informed, I feel discouraged by the knowing.
Praying the rosary through the dental work, I made it to the forth mystery, but still all of the every day felt like walking into the desert without a clear hint of direction. I can do the things, but am I doing God’s will. The gospel of today, where people were asked, when did I see you hungry, thirsty, naked, ill, in jail, left me wondering, was I not seeing enough?
What did my soul need me to do? I walked into my various errands trying to put the things together, to find how they fit. Struggled with the reality, God does not need my work, God works through my efforts. God longs for my love, and for my life to be a means by which His love is revealed and brought to the world.
So what should I be doing? Why did my brain keep spinning back to this?
Lent is always a confusing time for me. I can’t tell if I’m making progress, and yet know if I’m struggling, it means I’m at least trying to discern as opposed to going through days without a thought in that direction. Being in the desert is hard. Lent is hard. Grief is hard. Figuring out how to infuse all of life with love, simple but not easy. I will keep trying, praying for the discernment of the what and the how, I do know the why.
To persist. Ours, is to run until we stop running. We are to pray until we find the reality of the Ressurection before us.
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