Fr. Bob
Lent is not just a time for giving up things. But it’s all how you look at it. If you think of it as an adventure that can teach us a lot about ourselves, it changes everything.
I remember an adventure that came the summer of my sophomore year in college. It was a month-long survival camp, one week of boot camp like training and three-week canoe trip into the wilds of Canada.
They told us, “Think of this as an adventure that will be a lot fun”. But I was nervous the first day I got there. As I would find out if Jesus was tempted in the wilderness of the desert I would be tempted in the wilderness of the Canadian wild, tempted to give up.
The first day on the trail they loaded me up with a seventy-five -pound Duluth pack with a canoe I was to carry. It was a one-mile hike down the Canada National Railroad to get to water. It’s a good thing that a train didn’t come. I would not have seen it with the canoe on top of me. After a while when I felt my shoulders go numb, I thought I was going to pass out. They told me this would be fun. But it didn’t feel like fun to me.
Then, there was the time it rained all night. When I woke the next morning, the bottom of my sleeping bag was soaking wet. The rain that had poured in, the tent left my feet in my sleeping bag in a pool of water. They told me that this would be fun, but it didn’t feel like fun to me.
Then toward the end of the trip, they left each of us on an island in the middle of a big lake. All we had was a tarp, a knife, a tin cup, and four matches. It was four days without eating. I thought I was going to die. It was supposed to be a vision quest of some type. The only vision I had was the Golden Arches of a McDonald’s in the sky. Just as hard was all that time with nothing to do all day but think. Pretty lonely out there with no one to talk to. They told me that this would be fun, but it didn’t feel like fun to me.
Every year during Lent we are invited to practice three disciplines, the discipline of prayer, the discipline of fasting, and the discipline of alms giving. Payer is the practice of learning to be alone with God. Fasting is the practice of learning to empty ourselves to make room for God. And almsgiving is the practice of learning to be generous with what we have.
Without realizing it the survival camp experience had taught me all three of the disciplines of Lent. Left out in the wild I learned to be comfortable with silence and being alone with myself. That made it easier to pray. Through the fast of my four-day solo I learned to go without things I thought I needed.
And then on a portage when the slowest guy couldn’t keep up, I could either keep going or go back to help him out. That’s what almsgiving is. It’s being generous enough to go back and help those who are left behind.
What are you going to do this Lent to develop the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? What is going to be your time alone with God? What are you going to fast from so you can make room for God? And who are you going to help who’s been left behind?
As I look back at my survival camp experience, I now realize that what at the time I thought was anything but fun turned out to be great fun as I saw what it developed in me.
And so, for you this Lent, think of the three dDisciplines that at first look like anything but fun if you work at them can be great fun. Work at them and they will help you become the person God is calling you to be. Today the adventure of Lent begins. So, jump in with both feet and let the fun begin.