Change of Heart

Lent: Ashes. Repentance. Self sacrifice. Ugh - another opportunity to wallow in self recrimination and abasement; another year to play at "giving up" a treat in hopes of impressing God or ourselves with our self control.
                                     OR
Lent: Renewal. Self Awareness. Metanoia or deep down change of heart. Another opportunity to examine our actions and move closer to God's vision of who we should be.

Whichever is our real motivation, these are the 40 days in which what we do is less important than the attitude we have when doing it.

I've got mixed emotions about this season of purple vestments and darkened churches. They don't mesh with my belief in God's delight in us, God's bounty and willingness to share it and God's insistence that in His love, we are all born anew and capable of accomplishing great things. It's taken me a long time to accept that forgiveness is ours when we ask for it and not try to earn it.

However, the statement of St. Paul in 1Cor 13 puts all of this in an important perspective:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, I gain nothing.

What amazes me in these lines is that we can do these extraordinary things at all. The gifts of God are truly irrevocable, even if we don't use them in the way that God intended. It is the way in which we use them that makes them a Christian witness or not, not the acts themselves. Whatever we do must be rooted in a love for others and not out of an ego-directed motive.

Each of us has the capacity to perform admirably, but where is our heart? Deep down, what do we think of those whom we are serving with our gifts? I had to stop watching some of the reality shows on TV because I was too tempted to feel superior to the people who seemed to be messing up their lives. That isn't loving and I was full of judgment about the people and not just their behavior. I was being a "noisy gong."

As I write this, I am looking at at a "Ty Beanie Babies" that sits on my desk. It's a white bear with the dove of peace embroidered on its chest. It's a reminder to me that this is the call of all of us: to walk through our days bringing reconciliation and healing and the olive branch of forgiveness. For me, it's a better reminder of what Lent is all about than the ashes and purple cloth.