Trying Again, Turning Around

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week we had our first meeting of our Lent program, following along with the brothers of SSJE in their series on time. In the introduction to it in the workbook, Brother Geoffrey Tristram talks about how concerned their founder was about how trains could move people around at the stunning speed of new train travel. How would we keep up? How could our humanity sustain such a change? I read it for the sermon time during the Eucharist and paused for drama before naming the speed—thirty five miles an hour! The lunacy!

I can imagine fifty years from now when our grandchildren will laugh at our current fixation with our smartphones. “Really, Grandma? You really checked your email on that thing in your pocket? All the time? Why?” I read a book a few years ago called Hamlet’s Blackberry in which the author talked about how nervous people got when you could make little notes to yourself on paper in your pocket, the stress of it all. The only sure thing is that people will continue to be nervous about things, concerned we’re doing it wrong somehow. But God sustained humanity then, and God will sustain humanity now, too.

My Lenten discipline over the last few years has been car silence; I succumb to temptation often enough, but in general I try to build in more quiet in my drive, which is around 25 minutes each way from home to church (sometimes less, sometimes more). Mulling over the monks’ meditations from SSJE, I thought about my own relationship to time. I get anxious about being late, I imagine everything will take less time than it does, I always accomplish just about one thing less than I thought I would in each work day. Time as Brother Geoffrey says, has long been an enemy to many of us, instead of the holy gift God intended.

Listening to my yammering mind in the silence, I had this ridiculous epiphany as I was driving—“If I figured this “time” thing out, it would really change my life!” After I had the thought I burst out laughing; of course I’m never going to “fix” my relationship to time. It’s not about fixing anything, it’s about acceptance: accepting that I have human limits and can only do so much. Accepting that God loves me no matter what I do in the first place. Accepting that if I’m late, I’ll ask for forgiveness (maybe even, too, receive it). Accepting that I have a jackalope monkey mind that swings from thought to thought and distracts itself from its distractions. Accepting that there is always silence beneath everything. And the hard one: accepting that I can change my behavior. I can decide to go to bed and get up earlier, I can decide to turn off the internet, I can decide to work differently. And I can forgive myself when I fail and start again. And again. And again.

Lent is the “try again” season; the word “Repentance” means to turn around. I can turn around now, and I can try again to turn around later.

Where are you trying to turn around? What’s your ridiculous insight of the day?

Blessings,
Sara+