3-2-22 LENT DEFINED

Define Lent.

I got curious. I often do.

When I was young the only thing to do with a curious question was: 

1. Ask someone

2. Find the outdated Encyclopedia Brittanica in the storage room and look it up

3. Put on your coat and walk down to the public library

4. Ponder and come to uninformed conclusions

Nowadays we have the internet. 

(I’m a curious person. I don’t get a lot done around the house.)

Anyway, I got curious about the word “Lent”. It’s been two hours now, and here’s what I have:

Lent is the past participle of lend.

It is also the word used to represent the period preceding Easter that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ’s 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. It runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday and so includes forty weekdays.

The etymology took me to a couple ancient foundations, one indicating it derives from lengthen, alluding to the lengthening of days in the changing of the season. Another refers to the term long, or stretching out, as in the exceptional fast of 40 days that Jesus undertook.

Since today is Ash Wednesday and the current Pope called for an international day of fasting and prayer for peace, particularly in Russia-invaded Ukraine, I am currently trying to keep my mind off food. Isn’t fasting such an interesting human experience?

Though the religion I have chosen to practice does not engage in the united observation of Lenten practice, I chose, thirteen years ago, to pause and write every day of Lent. I post the pieces on my blog to give me accountability. But the side effect is that I now have a sort of personal history, after all these years, that I would not otherwise have. It’s not necessarily chronological, but if anyone ever wanted to know the gist of who I am, reading this collection of thoughts would tell them more about me than most personal histories do. So hooray for Lent!

 

Two years ago, our entire world had entered the frightening and unknown space of a worldwide pandemic. Everything had come to a screeching halt. Schools closed down. Workers did what work they could from home. We were learning, slowly, the nature of the virus that was killing people. We were wiping down our groceries before they came in the house. We were sewing masks. We were craving, and not getting, human interaction. Church meetings were cancelled, and with them, the ordinance of the Holy Sacrament was no longer available to our congregation. Our church leaders gave permission for the ordinance to be performed in our own homes, under the proper priesthood authority. That’s when my fidgety hands started making Sacrament sets. Small family sets that could be used at home. I recruited my team, meaning Dave and my sisters, and my brother-in-law Michael. As the pandemic stretched on and on, the more sets we made. It’s a sweet story in itself. I wrote about it quite a bit in my Lenten writing two years ago. Anyway, I was out in the garage drilling away when our friend Paul Dickamore came down for a visit. Paul and Dave are golfing buddies. I thought he was coming to chat with Dave. But Paul is also the bishop of our church congregation, and he had come to ask if I would be willing to accept the calling as Relief Society President in our ward. Since we were not meeting as a congregation, such a conversation was the last thing that would have crossed my mind.

Thus began my service with a group of remarkable women and men who, like me, are trying to navigate life and get back Home without too much damage being done in the process. It has been a very demanding undertaking. Frankly, I don’t think anyone but Christ himself could do it perfectly, and that alone is soul stretching and incredibly, sometimes paralyzingly, humbling.

Charity may never fail -
But it sure can make you tired.

Being Relief Society President during the pandemic has been especially taxing. We have had ten funerals in the short time I have served. We have, just in the last few months, had three ward members in the ICU. There are physical needs… abundant physical needs! But the most difficult seem to have been the emotional struggles that do not come with a recipe for help. We have, as part of our ward, a mobile home park for seniors, where there is much struggle and considerable need. I have a constant internal battle, worrying that because I spend so much emotional and physical energy with that demographic, I am neglecting the larger group of women who live on the other side of the highway. Without going into exhausting detail, I ended up sitting on my sister’s couch one night not long ago, surrounded by three of my sisters and Dave, and I felt that rumble in my midsection that rose to my head and sprung forth in tears. You’d have to know that my blessed medication for depression generally keeps me from crying, so the presence of tears is worrisome in itself. Once they started I couldn’t stop. My poor sisters. None of us can stand to have another of us sorrowful. Finally, words came out:

“I think I miss creating.”

And there it was. My truth. I was no longer writing songs, or even playing guitar. I was not preparing lessons for guitar or ukulele. My gigs had ceased. I missed my creative friends. I missed quirky creative musical people. Plus there were no baby of wedding showers to throw. My house sat dusty and quiet because not even our family gathered there anymore. I was exhausted from serving, but so little of it was creative. That awareness brought with it a measure of grief that I am still trying to process.

But the awareness has also opened my mind to exploring options.

The pandemic is winding down, at least for the moment. The mask mandate was lifted from church meetings, and public buildings. We are starting to gather again. Hope springs eternal!

All this brings me to what I am thinking I will do for my Lenten sacrifice this year. 

I am going to create.

Sometimes it will be assembling words. Sometimes, it may be music, or visual art. It may be a new recipe. It may be rearranging a space. I am going to give myself the freedom to decide each day and not limit myself to one medium. But it has to be purposeful creation. And I promise to be accountable.

If its physical, I’ll post a photo. If it’s culinary, I’ll post a recipe. If it’s words, then of course, I’ll post that. All I can commit to is that it will be intentional, not accidental, though I do value accidental magic. It’s the intent that makes it a sacrifice, and it’s the sacrifice that makes it holy to me. A forewarning, however: Do not necessarily expect any of this to be reasonable or rational. What will be will be.

Albert Einstein

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” 

Einstein