The Lent that Would not Turn to Easter

 As noted previously, I've been calling the COVID 19 pandemic "The Long Lent." For a brief time, this year, we were all hoping that we might be coming out of it. Vaccines were available and even if not everyone was getting it, I and my vaccinated friends could resume dinners at cafes. We remained cautious, but early data showed that we were protected and, just as important, if we got a "breakthrough infection," we would have a large enough viral load to spread it to others. 

Then came the Delta variant. 

And here we are with rising cases and ICUs at hospitals full of people who didn't get the vaccination. There is renewed calls for masks and resistance to the same. Breakthrough cases even of the variant are mild but now carry a viral load large enough to spread. 

Yesterday, I learned things I should know, about someone who is in the hospital because they believed the virus was a hoax, about others who are not vaccinated and in jobs with high contact with people. One is someone I particularly like.

This new variant is said to be more contagious than the previous variants and it's here in Houston in a big way and in my job, I'm part of planning what is undoubtedly a super-spreader event, but in our defense, it's just one of many going on. We moving ahead with it regardless of what the color code for our community spread is. 

I was okay with this event until Delta. 

The event is on a Saturday. I'm already planning on staying home from church the next day, maybe getting a test just so I know I'm not spreading it further. 

And that feels like the responsible thing. 

Meanwhile, what I'm really struggling with is the people who are not vaccinated, who are creating space for the mutations. The person I know who is in the hospital right now, who didn't believe the pandemic was a real thing (apparently because the former occupant of the White House said it was a hoax)---I'm not close to him. He's an acquaintance. I'm nonetheless so angry at him. He and others like him are part of the reason we can't have the work event with peace of mind. I find myself thinking less than kind thoughts. 

I posted on my Facebook page that I was having trouble with compassion. I think some mistook that for struggling with being nice. I will confess to the sin of niceness, which is really just the sin of wanting to be liked. It may even be my besetting sin. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Anger, sadness, confrontation---all can be part of a compassionate response. 

Schadenfreude, however, is not compassionate. Taking pleasure is someone else's suffering is not, in any way, something I can square with the faith I profess. 

This latest surge is testing the limits of my ability to resist shouting "haha! Serves you right!" 

Because who doesn't deserve some suffering for the things they've done? We teach to take no delight in other's suffering because we know suffering, too.

This lenten season feels endless. It feels like we've reached a point where Easter is about to be celebrated and maybe we've let up a little on our disciplines, but we check the calendar and no, Easter is not this coming Sunday. 

We're so tired. All of us. But the Long Lent continues and we have to rededicate ourselves to the disciplines that we took up to make the world a better place. 

Lord have mercy.

Death Talk

 First Sunday of Lent 2021 (or else something like the 50th Sunday in the Long Lent)

A famous radio talk show host died on Ash Wednesday. A friend sent me a message to tell me (I'd already seen the news) and I said, "I did not amplify his voice while he lived, I'm not going to amplify his voice now that he's dead." 

And I've mostly kept to that. I've commented on a couple of friends' posts about it, but not extensively. And I don't intend to name him here---it won't take a genius to know who I'm talking about anyway. 

I don't have any sort of strict rule about talking well or ill of the dead. I'm not here to put up some kind of example for you to follow in that regard, or to shame anyone who went off on his legacy. I have no judgment for either situation. Because this man was not very nice to anyone who didn't think exactly like him. He was crude and cruel at the deaths of people he didn't like and I cannot hold it against anyone who returns the favor on his death. I understand it and it's only natural, given the life he led. I saw someone say they aspired to live such a life so that their name and "good riddance" didn't trend on Twitter upon their death. 

What can I say? The talk show didn't do that. The kind of life he led has consequences. One of them is that his immediate family has to endure seeing his name and "good riddance" trend together on Twitter. 

And, to be fair, any number of people I consider heroes also died with similar sentiments expressed. MLK, Jr. Harvey Milk. Jesus. So it happens in the best of families. 

Which is another reason not to speak ill of him at his death. I just made that  comparison and it's icky to me. Beating up someone when they're dead only leads to that sort of thing and I'd rather not put fuel on that fire. 

But maybe the issue is to live your life so the right people (whoever you deem them to be) will speak well of you at your death. The talk show host has had plenty of people sing his praises. I'm sure he would consider those the right people for that job, just as he would have considered me the right type of person to piss on his memory. 

Which I'm not, by the way. 

The posts that hurt me the most were the ones that consigned this guy to hell. That's a theological statement and one that I strongly disagree with. I can admit he was a divisive, terrible person without sending him to hell. 

Because, honestly, I'm not so sure about hell anymore. My belief and worship and love goes to a God of grace. Deep, wide, unconditional grace. As much I find it hard to think of the talk show host in terms of love, I do believe that God loves him. Does Love condemn? Anyone? 

 Friends who are more closely aligned to my way of thinking (about hell) say things like, "The talk show host now  knows the extent of God's mercy ad love and isn't he surprised?" Or maybe something like "If he finds himself  in the afterlife and finds himself with homosexuals, undocumented migrants, and feminists, won't that be his definition of hell? Which means the converse might be the same---when I find myself in the afterlife and meeting the likes of this talk show host, will I mistake eternity for hell? I'd rather think that maybe the notion of Purgatory is on to something, that maybe there's some purification process so that by the time we actually enter into the company of saints, we see one another lovable.

(Actually, none of these images for the afterlife work for me. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but I do think all of the images are just that, holding place pictures until we experience the real thing.) 

I make no excuses for the evil done by anyone. We have to do the clean up, sometimes for years, decades, and generations afterward. I'm sure I've caused some to have to do some cleanup after me, as well.

And it's okay to not amplify some voices. Silence is the most grace I, personally, can offer some people. The rest is up to the extravagant grace of God.

The Long Lent Continues

 Ash Wednesday, 2021. 

It is a hard time, a hard week here in Houston. On top of the political battles, the racial tension, and the pandemic, a polar vortex swooped into Texas and broke our delicate infrastructure. It's not enough that it got cold but millions have been without electricity and water. Today, the temperature rose enough above freezing that frozen water pipes across the city shared their secret cracks and breaks. One friend posted on Facebook that she was in the dark, cold, no running water, and now with wet carpet. I don't want to say this is the worst misery a human can endure, because it's not, but it's pretty miserable all the same. 

And so this is where we begin lent this year. 

Of course, I contend we never ended lent last year. Not really. I've called the whole last year the Long Lent. I'm disappointed it hasn't caught on, to be honest, but I can see why no one wants to claim that. Nonetheless, I stand by my naming. 

I feel perverse in that I've always loved lent. That's not true. I don't feel perverse about it, but it feels perverse to admit it this year. This quiet, introspective, somber time fits me in ways that Christmas doesn't. 

But it is getting a bit much, isn't it? 

No ashes this year, but I don't have a great attachment to that ritual, oddly enough. I didn't grow up with it. In my rural Lutheran upbringing, ashes were something the Roman Catholics did. I was an adult, in college, before I experienced it and it was about that time that more Lutherans adopted the practice. I've never turned it down, but it is not necessary for my start of lent. 

I've received the Eucharist once since last March. If you want to talk about rituals to miss, that's the one I miss. 

But I've been without ritual for most of this time. At least communal ritual. I'm not sure what ritual means when it's alone. It's not useless, of course, but as much of a hermit as I can be (and the pandemic has reinforced my hermit tendencies), I mostly find meaning in ritual in community. 

And all this has had me pondering the last year, the last 11 months without it. I am lost and I am not. I feel like I've been weathering the pandemic better than some, and I know I'm not doing as well as I might. I wonder where I might be if I could only gather with others around the sacrament. 

I've been thinking about the liturgical line (taken from scripture) about "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." We claim some salvific efficacy in Christ's sacrifice. I've been thinking about the ways that we have been sacrificing our gathered rituals for the salvation of our neighbors. 

In this season of The Long Lent, we've been abstaining from the Eucharist. What a practice in self-denial, to keep away from the sustaining sacrament! 

But I contend it is necessary. As weary as I grow in this long abstinence, I know it is right. Other people across the centuries have been without the Eucharist and Christian fellowship before. (See Bonhoeffer, LIfe Together.) I have been and continue to claim my solidarity with, indeed my shared baptism with those saints. 

The Long Lent continues. We grow weary and we miss receiving ashes and all the other rituals. 

Let us endure for the sake of one another. It is an abstinence endured for one another. 

Wick and Flame

 I got distracted yesterday and forgot all about the 12 Days of Christmas blogging. Oops. Anyway. 

Following up a bit on the previous two entries on breath and presence, here's one more bit of pondering/theologizing on what performers do. 

A metaphor: The performer is the wick. Stage presence is the light and heat. The wick can be prepared and shaped for making more light and heat. The wick is tangible, solid. The light and heat are less so, but nonetheless real. 

There are preparations and practices that make a performer ply their craft better. There are disciplines and rituals Christians perform in hopes of being better people. (I can argue that statement from a Lutheran point of view, but I'm leaving it alone for now.) 

The effects of all the preparation and shaping and discipline are not as solid as the person going through the prep but maybe that's why we use terms like fire and heat and light to describe some things. A performer may light up a stage, for example, and if I contend that effect is somehow spiritual in nature (whatever the spirituality of the performer), I'll also circle around to the need for the physical person. 

A wick has to be lit to give off light and heat, but the wick is needed. What I'm getting at is there's no spiritual without the physical. The spiritual will dissipate or simply disappear without the physical.