Lent Approaches as I Make a Fool Out of Myself

Sunday night, I died to self.

(It's not the first time).

When our pastor informed me a week or two ago that I would sit on a panel with a couple of others at the end of the sermon, I responded this way, "Oh, I don't really do unscripted.  I'm much better with a script."  That's why, as worship leader/artist-in-residence in our somewhat unconventional church (we meet twice a month and the other Sundays are spent with house churches), I write down every last word for the worship team.  I leave nothing to chance, because I know what happens when I'm asked to spontaneously pray or tell a story or explain an obscure truth or even give directions to the corner grocery store. . . .great fog rolls into my brain, and I grope around for words.  Usually, the ones I lay hands on are vague, uninspiring, and worst of all. . .cliche.  I find myself reverting back to the pressures and the easy answers of my evangelical background, where spontaneity was a sign of God's favor and proof of inner fire burning bright.  I strove for A-mens or even grunts from the assembled with every prayer.

It's an art to be able to pray or preach powerfully without a script.  It's a great skill to paint a story in the air with your hands and words, each image falling from your lips with precision and craft.  Martin's got this skill in spades.  Profundity echoes in the soft walls of his mouth and spills from him into the enraptured hearts and minds of his listeners.

I do not have this gift.

It did not make matters better that, whether due to an oversight or my own forgetfulness, I did not have a crystal-clear idea of the question I would grapple with in front of the congregation until that afternoon on Sunday when my sister told me.  It was a day packed with getting food and music and logistics ready for that evening.  Humbly I say that the music that evening was fabulous, the readings and confessional lovely, and the sermon meaningful.

And then I was called up with two others.  A fabulous eighth grade boy sat to my right, and beyond him, an older gentleman who is a sort of pillar of the church.  The eighth grader, J, whispered to me with clear eyes and steady voice, "I'm looking forward to this."  He calmly adjusted his notes in his lap.

I perched on the edge of my polished black stool.  With no notes to adjust, I folded my hands loosely.  I was not looking forward to this except with a vague, detached curiosity: would I be able to assemble my thoughts and give a clear and coherent answer?  Maybe the whole thing would be casual, a sort of Q/A, and I'd get rolling in a discussion with the others; with my guard down, maybe I'd be able to keep up a clipped repertoire, with a little bit of humor thrown in to keep us all loose.

The pastor turned on the microphone:  "So we've been talking this evening about what it means, practically, every day, to take up our cross and follow Jesus.  What does that--dying to yourself--mean to you?"

Gulp.

"Kim, I think we'll go with you first, and then you can hand the microphone down when you're done."

I took the microphone.  Expectant silence followed, broken only by my two profound opening words--or sounds, rather--"Um," followed by a blowing sort of noise that was me looking at the ceiling, hoping for the clouds in my head to part so I could see the light.

Everything I'd sort of thought of saying had left me.  If only I'd been asked to sing, or recite a poem, or tell about the Hallelujah Chorus Practice on Tuesday night.  If only. . .

"Well, that's a hard question. . . ."  I was bargaining for time, sinking into the realization that whatever I said would not be what I had hoped I would say, that the words I shared with all those upturned faces would be a poor representation of who I was, the struggles I'd soldiered through with the help of my community and God, the hard truths I'd come to shoulder and claim with joy.

Nothing.  "Sometimes I go for a walk in the rain. . ."  I heard myself say.  I had wanted to say:  I die to myself daily when I forgive another person, when I say sorry to my children and to my spouse.  I wanted to say:  I die to myself daily when I look at my life and realize it is not the life I would have structured for myself, that life has not granted me public recognition for my work though I wanted it; I live in a small rented house; I lose my temper; I have not met the dreams for success I laid for myself in my youth.

Too, I wanted to say, that all the hard things--accepting what happens to you and others and keeping your trust in a God who is good; all the hard things--days when I feel ugly and under-accomplished but cling to the truth that I am loved because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; all the hard things--giving up writing for a time while my children needed me because I chose it, not because I was made to do it; all the hard things--seeing and grappling with great evil in the world and yet choosing to believe God loves us all with an everlasting love--and finally, the hardest things--knowing that there is no guarantee that my life will be easy or that my children will be safe--all these mean shouldering my cross.  Sometimes sadness rolls in and I must be patient to live through it.  The cross is heavy and hard to bear, and I do not understand sometimes why Jesus asks us to pick it up.

I wanted to say, then, that these are also the words of God to us:  My yoke is easy and my burdens are light and you will find rest for your weary souls.  I wanted to follow those words by saying, Once you take up the cross, you find that your life is shot through with grace, that the burdens you were unable to bear are bringing you joy if not happiness, that the whole world is held by God if only you can see the light glimmering in every person, in the darkest corners of our world.  The cross and all it means bids me step into the suffering of others, and in that uncomfortable place, I am able to become the hands and feet of God.  And I wanted to end by saying, I do not shoulder this cross the way I should, nor do I really want to if it means suffering; my life is marked by living in tension between the easy and the hard, the assumed in our culture and the knowledge that culture, especially one that preaches ease and happiness, too often shrouds the truth and hides what is real.

Instead I found that my voice, amplified by the microphone, was unbearably loud and silly-sounding, that the syllables falling from my lips were too rounded, too sloppy.  I heard myself say, "We're not asked to walk on the journey alone," which I meant but didn't sound as meaningful as I hoped because it was cliche, and I fumbled as I lost the eye contact of my listeners, a polite and inadvertent message that I should shut up as soon as possible.  "It's a hard question. . . ."  I trailed, as I passed the microphone to the right, to J with his wonderful notes, each word an anchor to sense and coherence.

I've been trying to let it go.  Much of it is wrapped up in my own pride, that I had something good to share and I couldn't.  The whole episode I view with humor, humiliation, and resignation.  Martin convinced me that it was fine after the point at the beginning where he hoped I was not about to melt down or blank out completely.

But the question has dogged my footsteps.  What does it mean to die to yourself?  It is a hard question, and clearly not one that most of us have answered, since we have a whole part of the year set aside for this question specifically: Lent.  It starts today.

I am not, by nature, a good Lenten observer.  I like dessert a whole lot, and I sometimes wish that life were a series of parties, celebrating me and the people I love best.  The Orthodox Christians have the edge on Lent, of course, cutting out meat and dairy and sugar and alcohol and ramping up prayer and meditation--but what about me--evangelical-turned-Episcopal-turned-Mennonite-turned-who knows?

Well, last night was a good start.  Realizing that you're not the bomb-diddly and blanking out in front of a crowd--experiencing a public "Miss America" moment, as Martin put it so reassuringly--is a good way to die to oneself.

I think, this Lenten season, maybe the best thing I can do is to focus on saying "Yes" to all the things I've been putting off--writing letters, for instance.  To saying "Yes" to sitting down with my daughter to read her a book instead of piddling away time feeling important on my computer; saying "Yes" to more quiet time and less TV; to say "Yes" to the pile of books waiting for me to read.  To say yes to less dessert and more vegetables, to what truly sustains instead of what just feels good, to doing something nice for someone else even if it is a great inconvenience, to saying yes to listening more and talking less.  I've always liked that better than telling myself "No, no, no."

And maybe:  less words and more silence.  I can get behind that.

Um. . .Yes, yes, yes.