Giving up is not all bad

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For Lent this year, I’m just giving up.

          Source Unknown

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Lent is a slow walk with Jesus

Down dusty roads

Through small villages

 

Gathering around tables

Puzzling over parables

Challenged by terrifying teachings

And totally crazy parables that we barely understand

 

Watching the inexplicable

As the lame walk and the blind see

 

Where up is down and out is in

And dead

Is not

 

Stumbling toward Jerusalem

And ground-zero

Where violence, reconciliation

Despair, hope, oppression, and freedom

 

Will come together in a malign

Alchemy

And we will find ourselves on barren ground

At the foot of a cross

 

In these lengthening days

We are called to reflect

Confess, repent, and lament

 

To set aside distractions

And prepare our hearts for holy work.

 

But there are wars and rumors of wars

There are missiles flying and

Children dying

Leaders lying

 

We hear psychopaths invoking Armageddon,

And see Immigrants beaten

Abusers shielded from accountability

Innocence destroyed

Justice denied

 

And we are distracted.

Our best intentions crumble as we doomscroll

And sink further and further into the darkness

 

Losing sight of Jesus as his reality fades

Watching the light disappear into the dark

No longer reflective but anxious

Stuck in lament

 

Unable to take one more step

Toward the garden

Muttering under our breath

 

I give up

 

Which may be the point of Lent

Reaching that place where we sit

And wait

Open and vulnerable

Scared perhaps

 

Until, amazingly

We discover that the darkness cannot

Overcome the light

 

When we once again find ourselves walking

with the One who shows up in those places of

greatest failure and greatest need

 

And says, “Do you love me?

That is all I ask, that you love me.

 

Because I love you and will never abandon you

And implores us

Feed my sheep

 

I am here for you, be there

For others

 

Because that is what this is all about

When we get to the end of the journey, what will matter

 

Is that we have allowed ourselves to be loved

And that we have passed that love along

 

Being love

Loving

 

Everything

Depends on this

Everything