By Owen Phelps, Ph.D.
Director, Yeshua Institute
Jeez, this last year has been packed with frustrations.
Three things in particular have gotten my proverbial goat as I’ve battened down my social hatches and watched the year stretch out and the Covid-19 death toll climb toward the once unthinkable level of 500,000. (It’s likely we’ll reach that tragic milestone near the end of the month or soon after.)
- I’ve missed getting together with family members for fun and hugs – especially the hugs.
- I’ve missed pulling over and piling into a pub for a warm burger, cold beer and a bit of conversation.
- I’ve missed opportunities to reach out and help others in any number of ways, some of which I routinely did before and some of which I found myself dreaming of, probably as quiet resistance to the quarantine.
Now Lent arrives and the questions return as they do every year. What am I going to give up? And what am I going to do to contribute to the common good in some tangible way?
The pandemic diminishes my options on both sides of the ledger. A lot of the stuff I might give up have already been taken from me. A lot of the stuff I might start doing can’t be done while the coronavirus rages.
But just today I got an idea – albeit a modest idea – from the strangest of sources.
Not a fan
It came to me from an Irish travel agent via one of my daughters, who says the man is “not a big fan of organized religion.”
His little meditation – which offers no indication that it has anything to do with Lent – begins with an observation stolen, with credit, from ”The Boss.” That’s Bruce Springsteen, who wrote a song the Irishman encountered while getting an angioplasty some years ago.
Surely, as C.S. Lewis observed: “God writes straight with crooked lines.”
The song is titled “The Human Touch,” and one of its stanza ends with the heartfelt appeal:
I just want something to hold on to
And a little of that human touch.
Our scribe from the Auld Sod goes on to describe how Jesus so often “touched people in a way which went right to their heart.” And, he adds, there were other times when people touched him to dramatic effect.
He recounts the story in Luke 8 of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years but who was immediately cured when she touched Jesus’ cloak. He recalls Peter stepping out of the boat, walking across the water, suddenly overcome by self-conscious fear and sinking – only to be rescued when Jesus extends a hand and saves him. (Matt 14:29-31)
The Irish bard is not done. He refers to the account of Jesus responding to Thomas’ lack of faith by inviting him to “reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20: 26-28)
The Irishman observes: “No amount of learning, or study, or wealth (think Midas) or achievement can replace the simple gesture of reaching out your hand to another. It is the most basic and friendly of human gestures.”
Then this man who came to me out of the blue concludes:
It is no accident that so many of the statues of our Lord depict him as reaching out. If ever we were called to be servants of the Gospel, now is surely the time when we should take that risk and reach out in every way imaginable to those who need us, whether our instinctive feelings are towards prejudice or not. Jesus reached out to the many from whom we would naturally recoil – and He is right, and we are wrong.
So a Lenten notion comes to me from the powerful and timeless example of Jesus through a man halfway round the world via my daughter -- at this very moment when I sit down to reflect on what we might do and not do at this auspicious time of the year.
Reach out
Reach out and touch someone.
And even if in the midst of this pandemic it’s not possible to reach out and touch someone physically, then reach out and touch them emotionally.
Make contact.
The phone will work if there is no more immediate way.
I think drive-by greetings are ingenious. I wouldn't have thought of them in a million lifetimes. They have warmed the hearts of my children and grandchildren, my siblings and nieces and nephews, of friends … and even some of those “friends” I know only from Facebook.
One of my daughters and her two daughters have taken to baking greetings and good cheer, dropping off their delights to relatives and friends alike. Gosh how I wish they lived close enough to add me to their gift list.
Some of those gifts have inspired reciprocal symbols of affection and solidarity – homemade dumplings stand out in my recollections. People reaching out and touching each another.
All of it builds fraternity – the very thing that just might save the world if Pope Francis is to be believed. (And yes, I do believe what he has to say and I can’t get enough of it.)
Reach out and touch someone … however it occurs to you to do that. Now or later. Or better, both. Now and later.
In our family we are gathering nightly on Zoom. Sometimes all five children, their spouses and their children show up. Sometimes only one of my children’s families make it. Sometimes adults visit. Other times we watch the children interact – and teach us tricks with Zoom. There's no script, no protocol.
We’ve been treated to concerts, dance recitals, art shows, science presentations, comedy monologues, pet cameos and more. We’ve spent more time together during the quarantine than before.
On Sunday mornings we gather – usually 15 to 20 households from six to eight states and Canada – for a prayer service using the church’s Bible readings for the day and drawing from the family’s more musically endowed members. Then we stay on for coffee and conversation.
When it comes to human touch we have had to innovate even as we dream of days to come. Now in Lent we can reach out a little further to figuratively embrace a few more -- maybe some whom we have overlooked or ignored.
Giving up?
And that gets us, finally, to what we might give up in Lent 2021.
How about our own insular inclinations, whatever they might be?
Pope Francis often warns us about the dangers of being comfortable – about getting addicted to it. I know I’m pretty close.
I like my comfortable chair with my reading light, a good book, the remote, a smart phone and time to fill with entertainment or solitude precisely as I chose at the moment.
I was going to say “as the Spirit moves me.” But I know that’s not always the case. Often, too often, it’s just a case of “as my own self-centered, self-indulgent excessively comfortable self is so inclined.”
This Lent I hope to see less of that in me.
I think I’ll start with prayer. And maybe end with it too.
Happy Lent!