I was listening to several of the talking heads lapping up the Kool-aid and saying this recession is the barometer for the “new depression,” and rising gas and food prices were the “new normal.” My parents grew up in the depression of the 1930’s. So did my wife, Robin’s, parents. The depression stamped them for life and yes, there is reason to be concerned about today’s recession, but there’s also a reason to be hopeful. I’ve been remembering my first Lent as a young teenager; it was a time that I felt that pull of the Anglican faith and practice that shaped my life.By requiring fasting and abstinence, the observance of Lent somehow helped me cope with the multitude of early teen angst many of us had to grapple with.
This was also the time that I attended confirmation class. We were asked to give something up. I gave up eating candy. The main point for me was just to get through those 40 days. I remember being told that this was the same number of days a famished Jesus spent in the desert and the number of years the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness. “God’s will” was the name we gave to suffering, and God’s grace was the promise that it would end ... eventually.
Lent is one of the most important seasons in the calendar, but now self-denial seems more a suggestion than a requirement. Maybe it’s this notion of the “new normal.” We are inundated with the statistics of unemployment and poverty on the rise. Who needs Lent to give something up? We have all sacrificed, so I suppose Lenten self-denial could be forgiven this year.
There are plenty of difficulties in everyday life without choosing to add new ones. Job loss is hell enough. I mean this is America; yet it seems this whole economic mess came out of nowhere and revealed that we weren’t as secure as we thought we were.
Yet, I would argue that traditional Lenten observances offer one particular contrast to today’s “new normal.” Lent begins with the word remember; spoken when a cross of ashes are smudged on the forehead…remembering what we are and where we came from; ashes to ashes, dust to dust; we are the created.
This year it struck me that the millions of people who started Lent in the same way simply go through the motions and deny the scriptures as they say, “Remember thou man we are dust, and all things are passing,” This is a hard cold fact . This “new normal” put a sharp focus for many on material worries, and should instead remind us of what matters most in life.
Lent will end and sacrifices will go on. There is nothing wrong with job security, and yet, it seems there is nothing right with suffering. That is exactly what our Lord came to do. To suffer for us, so we don’t have to. It seems insecurity is normal again and that’s okay, because if Lent teaches us anything, it teaches us to get used to it. "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Luke 9:22 .
We are all part of the human situation. This recession is new but it certainly isn’t normal. We will suffer from time to time. This Lent remember we may be dust, but because he suffered and was raised. We are redeemed dust.
Be Remembering,
Bishop Ian
