When failure is the best option

Today is Ash Wednesday.  I confess I am a failure at Lent.  I am not sure if I am failure because of my thoroughly Southern Protestant roots, my addiction to sugar, the fact that I am a recovering perfectionist who refuses to participate in her own recovery or lack of discipline.  All of the above I am sure.  

Our current media saturated culture doesn’t lend it self well to traditional Lenten practices and the current psychobabble that is so prevalent in our culture doesn’t exactly conform to the practice of self-denial either.  And if I am to lean far to the Christian Evangelical right, our position on sin isn’t exactly healthy either. 

Things I have tried to give up for the Lent in the past:

Wine I can’t see through or comes in box.  Given my allergy to tannins and that I never drink a red anyway and I am snob and refuse to drink wine out of box, that left white wine completely legal.

Meat. Never ever met a steak, a chicken, a hamburger or a hot dog that I couldn’t live with out.  And since Lent usually occurs before opening day of baseball season, the hot dogs didn’t pose much of a temptation either.

Food but only from 9 to 3 on Fridays or before communion, which is the traditional way of fasting and might I add for someone who routinely doesn’t eat lunch and could not possibly get a family ready and fix breakfast on the same Sunday am before 11 am, not too hard.

Sex. That was the year I was pregnant with Davis, in my first trimester and vomited every day for 16 straight weeks, could only eat bananas and spaghetti, had two yeasts infections and was really reconsidering the whole motherhood thing.  True story.  Ask Vance.

Watching TV.  This was before Downtown Abbey and the years following Tim Duncan at Wake Forest and ACC basketball had lost its appeal.

Caffeine.   That was the year I was diagnosed with a heart rhythm problem that is made worse by caffeine. I will fail to mention that it was casually suggested by a mental health professional that perhaps I had a little too much secondary stress in my life and perhaps 6 cups of Java prior to 9 am and getting paid to help people die didn’t go hand in hand.  And this was perhaps my most successful Lent because I am highly motivated by avoiding cardiologists at all costs and I worked for one for over ten years.  And I really didn’t want him seeing my prepped groin on procedure table.

Gossiping.  I choose that the year I prepping for a national certification exam in a short six week time period, had divorced a very good friend, given up on God and people in generally and just really choose not to engage the human race. 

Last year.  Peanut butter cookies from Subway.  I lasted about four days.

 

One year I “fasted” from buying any new piece of clothing from Ash Wednesday until the Saturday before Easter. Lent is over on Palm Sunday and Holy Week begins.  This meant I could still buy an Easter Frock on Holy Saturday.

I think you get my point, 40 days of self-denial is just not possible for me.

I have also been known to take on things like:

Read all the Gospels in 40 days.  Actually I started out pretty good but finally had to concede defeat and read the Mark’s gospel on Holy Saturday.  And if you are wondering Mark’s account is the shortest by far. I even stopped where the original text stopped and didn’t read on. Not kidding.

Commit to memory the entire Sermon on the Mount.  I didn’t even get the Beatitudes memorized. 

Pray seven times a day. I am not sure that I even remembered to pray more than once a day and I don’t think Jesus, what the heck counts.

Read the Daily Office twice a day. I cheated and read it all at once everyday and if I missed, I played catch up on Saturday and sometimes I skipped the Old Testament Reading and Psalms and jumped right to the Gospel.

Go to evening prayer every day.

One might call me an overachiever, and I think we all can relate.

It occurred to me last week when I was working on a talk to give to a group of women about spiritual matters and was trying to come up something wise, that failing Lent is our best option.

Jesus preached and St. Benedict tried to revive it and we might do well to remember the way to life again.  Jesus preached nothing harsh and nothing burdensome.   Jesus preached kindness, charity and gentleness. 

St. Benedict reminded us that:   “always we begin again.”  

Our culture is not known for reasonableness. But Jesus was.  God is not angry when we forget: to pray, say thank you, love someone enough, be kind, read the Bible, keep money to ourselves when we could give it away, hate our brother for being different, look the other way when we could help.  God might be sad but he is not angry.  God knows we are human and humans being humans will consistently do one thing and that is fail.  We fail because we are not God.  We are wired for failure.  It is our nature.  And this is perhaps the whole point of Lent.  Failing and giving ourselves a break when we do.  After all, God does.  It is only when we realize how frail and how broken we are that we are really able to begin.  Lent should teach us this one very, very important thing and really it is the only thing…If all the broken people of the world would just love the broken people of the world then the chains of sin are broken.  We are all broken.  We all fail.  And the only fixing that comes is when we move forward.  When we fall and get back up.  So this year, just once, fail and let God do the rest.