How could this possibly be difficult? I barely go anywhere. I am totally blessed by the presence of two young people in my life who run my errands and get my provisions so that I, with my age and underlying conditions, am safe. Although I would love to see the people I care about in person, I have email and phone services that enable me to keep in touch and are totally affordable. I even have a Lenten plan of attack that has served me well in years past and should continue to do so this year.
So why does my Lent feel more full of holes than holy?
I have plenty of rationales (or rationalizations). Over the past year, I have worked harder than I ever have in my life. The “team” I am working with and supposedly leading is difficult, including a couple of really challenging personalities. I got so behind with everything else, that when I did finally excavate a drawer into which I had hurled everything not requiring immediate attention, I found that I had failed to affix the new registration tags to my car for the last seven months. And my house looked as if a hurricane had blown through it.
Now that I finally have a little breathing room, however, I am pretty sure that something else is going on. In pandemic-land, today is “blursday.” * Our sense of time and place and space is fundamentally altered in ways I cannot fully comprehend. For me, and a number of my friends, this translates into a lack of focus on anything that isn’t absolutely pressing. Even fundamentals like eating and sleeping have become variables.
One result is that I have essentially squandered over a month of Lent. What to do?
There are just two weeks until the Holiest day of the year, when Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I am going to try in every way I can to do something with those two weeks. I probably won’t do everything I usually do – I customarily add things rather than giving things up – but I am going to select a thing or two and give it my best.
And may God grant me the presence of mind to succeed.
* I read this word – among others – in Time magazine. I’m not clever enough to have made it up.
