By Peter M. Carey
Entering Lent each year I tend to hear people at church (including myself) say that we should “give something up,” or (more recently) “take something on”. Giving up chocolate, or alcohol, or negativity are some choices that I have heard about. Taking on such things as praying daily, reading the Bible, or tending to one’s spiritual life can be wonderful disciplines. Often, however, I get focused on the obstacles. I get focused on (and obsessed with?) the thing I’ve tried to “give up,” or I find myself focusing on the thing that I’ve “taken on.” This is the wrong focus, perhaps like a hurdler focusing on the hurdles so much that she hits every hurdle and crashes. Obviously, the hurdles are not the focus of the race. Focusing on the obstacles can obscure the goal. I imagine this may be true of others as well.
This year, I have tried to really consider the question of the reason that we observe Lent at all. What is the reason to “give up” or “take on.” There are probably tons of reasons, but, for me, as someone with a busy house of three children under 6, and a busy ministry of serving as a chaplain to a large and complex school, the main reason to observe Lent at all has been to give some time to remember God. I have attempted to focus on God, rather than the things I’ve given up (Facebook), and rather than the things I’ve taken on (reading the Bible and theology daily with greater focus).
As simple as it sounds, the practice of giving time back to God, so that I might remember the ever present reality of God, can become difficult. Sometimes, it is helpful to push out from the comfort of our lives, to find someway to interrupt the spinning top of our schedules, and contemplate God.
For me to fully remember the fact that my life is contingent upon God, and God’s prevenient Grace (ever present Grace) it took a recent experience quite a few miles from chapel, and from my Bible.
About a week before Lent began, I found myself 45 feet in the air, clutching a plastic wall resembling a cliff, with two of my students providing the only safety against the relentless force of gravity. For a few split seconds I looked down and wondered whether those slightly built adolescents could really provide enough ballast and support, just in case my hands or feet slipped, or tired. After the moment passed, I looked back to the plastic “rock wall” and somehow pulled myself up to the top. However, there was a moment of fear, the healthy and appropriate fear of heights, and the somewhat less appropriate fear that two trained climbers would not fulfill their obligations and prevent me from falling.
For anyone who rock climbs regularly, these fears, and the minor anxieties of the sport, probably recede. However, for me, as a chaperone on the junior class “leadership retreat,” I had only one previous experience of climbing, and that one was several years ago. When the opportunity arose to get out of the seven-period-day grind of school, and spend some time with students outside the four walls of the classrooms, I jumped at it. It wasn’t until that moment, when I realized that I was quite literally putting my life into the hands of adolescents, that I had to surrender my need for control and realize that I was quite literally fully dependent on others.
So also my experience of Lent this year: stepping out beyond the four familiar walls, in order to contemplate my own dependence upon God. Stepping away from the comfortable, and the spinning top of our busy schedules may offer us the deep sense that God is there, holding the rope. We don’t have to fear. Remembering God may take some discipline, but we are offered the deep and abiding reward that we feel God’s grace, and God’s support, even as we scale the sometimes rocky and fearful path.
The Rev. Peter M. Carey is the school chaplain at St. Catherine’s School for girls in Richmond, Virginia. He blogs at Santos Woodcarving Popsicles.