Our anxieties, our collective and individuals fears, need to be named - Meditation for the First Day of Lent: Ash Wednesday

I recently heard on a radio talk show a conversation about what makes people feel anxious in today’s social climate. The comments from callers ranged from financial fears to injustice issues, but the underlying point was that we are living with a sustained fight or flight syndrome. The question was posed: Where could this sustained shared stress come from that so many feel vulnerable? Even more succinctly, another commentator highlighted how this seemingly wide spread trepidation has seeped even into our local communities and caused us to look with suspicion at our own neighbors?

Have you experienced this? Does this resonate with you? Are you feeling fretful, looking at others with distrust or disdain? When you look at your neighbor, do you only see The Other or do you love The Other as yourself? I confess that I, like the Pharisee in today’s Gospel lesson, have looked with contempt on my own neighbors. In my nervousness and ignorance, I have judged others in hopes that by pointing out their faults my own shortcoming might be diminished in any light of accountability. I too have tried to distract others, myself, and the Holy One from discipline and judgment by pointing out the need for discipline and judgment in others.

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

Like a magician’s sleight of hand, I arrogantly believe that if I distract the Creator with the failings of others, that maybe G-d will not pay attention to my own. Or if I inflate the mundane motions that I mindlessly go through in my public life, perhaps the Benevolent One will be too preoccupied praising me to expose those things that I fear being revealed in my personal life. Perhaps that is the real root of our collective anxiety – exposure. No one wants to feel bare, stripped naked of our defenses. Under our protective armor, we are raw and vulnerable, like Christ on the cross.

Lent is our opportunity to turn off the squawking of the fear mongering media and tune into the ancient prophetic call that echoes through time and tradition to return to the Lord. Even today’s scripture speaks to us of the need to humble ourselves, willingly exposing ourselves to the one who reminds us, “Fear not.” Our anxieties, our collective and individuals fears, need to be named as we strip them away, throwing them into the crucible of the cross. By naming them, we expose them to the Light, where they surely return to dust, leaving only our pure, true identity as members of the Body of Christ, longing to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The readings for Ash Wednesday are Psalm 95 [for the invitatory] & 32, 143; Amos 5:6-15; Heb. 12:1-14; Luke 18:9-14 and are at www.satucket.com/lectionary/2epiphL.htm#Wednesday.