Lenten Repentin'

On October 11, 1962 the Ecumenical Council convened in Rome, and when asked of his intentions in calling the council, the Pope walked to a window and threw it open. A fresh breeze entered the room. Fasting, abstinence, pagan babies, and suffering souls in purgatory, and weekly visits to the confessional box – the old church was full of this stuff that focused on grappling with sin and evil. Now we would speak of fresh breeze, of spirit. Despite the elegance of that gesture, you and I both know from within ourselves that this spirit of good coexists with non-good, choice of other-than-good, distraction-from-good. We need not point fingers. We choose other-than-good too.

I used the word “choose.” For several months a few years ago we tried to rescue a young high school girl who had been sentenced to a juvenile detention facility, and was about to be sent to a youth camp across the state from her dysfunctional family. We took her in and learned the language of her probation officer: the condition of her life was the result of the quality of her choices. And so it is that the quality of our lives is also a result of our choices.

Repent means re-lean. During our elections, we ask potential voters which way they plan to vote, or they are leaning. Part of the “unwrinkling” process of Lent is reflecting, looking in our mirror and seeing which way we are leaning. When we do our Examen, what do we discover about the results of the choices we made that day? How do we feel when we choose the good, when we choose other-than-good? Yesterday I was working in my workshop on a pile of breadboards that I wanted to finish. Kathy came in and asked me to help her figure out how to get the music playing on our computer. I looked at her with a “leave me alone, can’t you see that I’m busy” look. Fortunately, she stood her ground. I went up and showed her the step that she had missed, and by the time I got back down to my work I found myself reflecting on that look I had given her and knew that this was the ugliest experience of my day. The good was to help the one I love. I was leaning the wrong way, and it was her Irish firmness that gave me a gentle shove.

This Sunday’s Good Story (click for a link) finds the prodigal son realizing that he’s made a bad choice. He had leaned into his father’s face and demanded his inheritance, not wanting to wait until the old man died. He had leaned toward the other-than-good of the world away from his father. And now he was feeding pigs, these animals that in his culture were considered unclean, and even imagining eating their slop. He found himself, there in that pigpen, beginning to lean back toward his father, to re-lean toward the good that he had not chosen.

Fasting or abstaining gives us practice in making choices; the Examen helps us reflect on the results of those choices in our day. And entering this Good Story by climbing into the pigpen with the prodigal help us to feel our leanings; it helps us engage our truest desire. Sit with the story again. Read it again and again until you memorize it. Come to your senses. There are smells in this one, and sounds. Be the prodigal. Which way are you leaning in the various stages of the story? How do you feel when you are leaning this way, that way?

FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.