After all this time?

This Lenten season, I've decided to put on, rather than take away. I guess, like most working parents, the pandemic has weakened my resolve and frazzled my nerves to the point that I barely entertained the idea of the chocolate and alcohol fast that has been my Lenten go-to for the past few years. Pandemic or no pandemic, though, I've discovered in the past week that "putting on" isn't exactly a cake walk- mmm...chocolate cake... told you fasting wasn't in the cards this year. 

Last week, I tried putting on patience. I chose this virtue first because my school had to pivot, once again, to our virtual platform because of a COVID exposure, and I knew that I needed patience to make it through. I meditated on this virtue each morning and explored places that I saw patience at work (or not at work) in my life. The "results" were grimmer than I had anticipated. Virtual school is a struggle for me. I spend a lot of time trying to convert lessons to virtual format, but then still worry about my students' engagement and comprehension. All that time in front of a computer sitting in basically the same hunched-over position makes me physically ill. Grades were due yesterday and the day ended with the question that scorched the earth of all marriages in 2020-"who is supposed to be watching the kids during this Zoom meeting?" So is it any wonder that my week of meditation on patience ended in a roar when I  accidentally smacked my hand against the wall while telling my kids that yes, they do, in fact,  have to wash their hands after playing at a public park. I had to go into the other room and let out the yell. Story thought I was screaming because of her and was on the verge of tears. I apologized while unpacking her Happy Meal. When I began my week of meditation on patience, this wasn't how I envisioned it ending. 

So, I'm a bit scared of putting on what I feel needs to come next. This week I will try to put on love. 

I'm up in the middle of the night because of love. Because love for my son means I wake up when he calls out in the night, and because love for God drives me to use these wee hours to think and read about Him, once I'm wide awake. 

I think about God a lot. Both in the day and night. I have since my early 20's. But my thoughts have shifted with age. My mind has never been an easy place, and my heart, now that I'm getting to know its terrain in my 30's is less easy still. The pitches of faith that once felt easy to climb, have grown steeper as I've stepped away from certainty and embraced a less evangelical theology. To some, this might look like a loss of love for the Almighty. But does a loss of certainty mean a loss of affection for the Holy One? 

I used to think that it might. It's a scary thing to shift one's faith. It makes people angry, concerned and uncomfortable- let alone what it does to one's own psyche. That's another blog (er..book? for another day... let's stay focused on love) And in that shift, maybe the most frightening thought of all is this- will I lose the Person that I have grown to love? Will questioning, shifting, probing around in my beliefs terminate my affection for the Almighty? This question has kept me up in nights past. Happily, though- I'm here with an answer to that question. An answer borne of many sleepless nights, flowing tears, countless conversations, podcasts and prayers, poems and books- an imperfect and developing answer that reflects my untidy and unfinished love. 

 Pastor Howard has us reading John Meacham's The Hope of Glory for Lent. He puts the answer beautifully 

"Fundamentalist believers and fundamentalist atheists would both do well, I think, to acknowledge that literalism may be comforting but is ultimately dangerous, for an uncritical acceptance of one worldview or another (whether in religion or politics) ends more conversations than it begins. Light can neither emanate from nor enter into a closed mind...without reason we cannot appreciate complexity; we cannot rightly appreciate the majesty and mystery of God and without rightly appreciating the majesty and mystery of God, we foreclose the possibility of the miraculous and the redemptive."

Love is deep, complex, and beyond where I currently am. My love for God, deep and untidy as it may be, is but a speck compared to God's love for me, for humanity, for this created world. Because God is love. And God is deep and complex and beyond. But love, because of "the miraculous and the redemptive" is also here. And it is in deep contemplation of that truth, that I've found fertile soil for love to grow. Those pitches of faith have become steep and sometimes uncomfortable, but the view from here is phenomenal. I've never been able to see so much love as from these wobbly heights. 

I read Harry Potter in the past year. To some Christians, this is heresy. To those who've read, though, you'll understand what I'm about to say. Maybe it's all that needs to be said as I begin this week of reflection on love-  

Jesus. 

After all this time? 

Always.