Guess what I’m giving up for Lent? The use of the left elbow formerly known as good. About a year and a half ago I fell and shattered my dominant right elbow, leading to much woe and travail, which continue to this day. Last week I tripped and broke the other one. Yeah, hard to fathom, isn’t it? If karma is the belief that no bad deed goes unpunished, I really want to haul old Karma into court and make her prove just what it is that I allegedly did to deserve not one but TWO busted joints.
Luckily, for my piece of mind, I firmly believe that I broke both elbows because I tripped. We may investigate why I seem to fall more than the national average, but I do not have to waste any precious energy on figuring out the moral dimensions of my fall. Karma didn’t do it. God didn’t do it. I tripped. Period.
Rather, I am looking to Sparky Dog as my Lenten Guide. This had been the plan before my big break, but the relevance of it shines even more brightly now.
I have been meditating on the fact that dogs don’t do Lent.
Sparky doesn’t give up Bark’n Bac’n. He doesn’t vow to run an extra loop after the backyard squirrel. Sparky already lives each day as his Creator intended. And he is sure enough of God’s love for all creation to know that when a patch of sunlight appears on the bed in the afternoon, his duty is to just lie there and enjoy it, gift that it is.
For Lent, I plan to join him there in the Light and heal. I am pretty sure that’s ok with God.
Amen.
Martha Popson blog
