Give something to our community for Lent
Growing up in Baptist churches in East Texas, I never experienced the Christian season of Lent — the time of devotion and discipline that serves as a 40-day preparation for Easter. My only real acquaintance with the church calendar at all was with our two main feasts — Easter and Christmas.
While those Baptist churches did not introduce me to Christian liturgical seasons, they did give me a love for the Bible. They taught me to savor the words of our holy book, to seek to understand the text and then to put it into action.
I was first exposed to Lent in college by visiting Episcopal churches and studying theology. The dominant theme was denial — Lent was about giving something up, things like chocolate, cheese, or coffee. It was a time to abstain from shopping or social media or swearing. It often felt like little more than a competition to make the greatest sacrifice, to give up more than your roommate.
In reality, Lenten fasting is meant to help us acknowledge and wrestle with our human frailty and to stare our own death in the face. The aim is to create space for us to recognize God’s gifts of life and love, preparing us to receive these gifts anew at Easter. I often missed this truth as the caffeine withdrawal would set in.
As I became more involved in the Episcopal church, I began to pay more attention to the different Bible passages read during the Ash Wednesday liturgy, the service kicking off the Lenten season. That early love of Bible and the desire to heed its words came to life.
One reading in particular grabbed my attention: “This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.” (Isaiah 58:6-7, The Message translation)
The fast that Isaiah describes seemed different from giving up my morning cup of coffee or skipping dessert after a meal. This fast seemed to matter not just for me, but for the life of the world. It was a call to action, a call to justice and liberation. It was a call to take something on, namely, concrete love of neighbor.
Then I noticed the language in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel: when you give alms, when you pray, when you fast. Not if, but when. Again, action and commitment. Finally, I discovered the Lenten tradition of practicing acts of mercy. For centuries Christians have seen Lent as an opportunity to engage in new spiritual disciplines aimed at serving the world, disciplines intended to become lifelong practices of kindness, compassion and charity.
The Lenten fast — Isaiah’s fast — doesn’t stop after 40 days. It continues day after day, as we seek to love our neighbors as ourselves. As Christians, we believe that God’s love and justice ultimately break through at Easter, as Jesus Christ defeats evil and death. While we still wait for the final realization of that victory, we are confident that the vision cast by Isaiah will arrive, even as we work towards it now.
In Austin, there are so many organizations engaged in this type of work — El Buen Samaritano, Casa Marianella, and iACT to name but three. Perhaps our Lenten practice might be to show up and serve our neighbors alongside those already committed to the work. You can still give up chocolate or social media if you’d like — I did — but why not also seek to break the chains of injustice?
The Rev. Dr. Joshua B. Kulak is a priest at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Austin and enjoys spending time with his wonderful family, his books, and his beloved Liverpool Football Club. Doing Good Together is compiled by Interfaith Action of Central Texas, interfaithtexas.org.
“Love Stories” by Trent Dalton (Fourth Estate (Harper Collins)
In 2020, on Christmas Day, Kathleen Kelly, Trent Dalton’s old friend and journalism colleague, died at the age of 89 and bequeathed Dalton her sky-blue Olivetti typewriter. Kelly had written hundreds of pieces on that machine, mainly letters urging politicians and church leaders to do right.
Kelly’s life had been filled with love and, although exactly how the idea came to him is uncertain, Dalton decided to use her typewriter to write stories of love.
He set up a small table and two chairs and his Olivetti at the corner of Adelaide and Albert streets in Brisbane and put up a little sign: “Sentimental Writer Collecting Love Stories.”
If you promise to listen, people will speak.
For weeks, strangers sat down and told him the stories of their love relationships, how they found love, or how they defined love. They spoke of adult love, love for children, for parents, friends. It is a charming read.
Dalton typed them out and here are 43 of them.
Helen and Norm were good friends for two years before he kissed her.
When she asked why it took so long, Norm said he never got a chance. “You always had a cigarette in your mouth.” They were together for more than 40 years.
There are several stories urging us to move along, not waste time.
But in another chapter we are advised that our hugs, usually 3 seconds long, are too short to do real good. Hug longer.
But the story told by Sakura, a 37year-old Japanese/Australian woman is very different. She met a man online, had a four-month romance with him, then married.
Friends said “Follow your heart.” “What could possibly go wrong?” Well.
Sakura says she now thinks people “put too much weight on romance.”
“Follow your heart, she whispers. Ha!
Follow it right into hell.”
This is, of course, the exception. More often, the blazing romance and marriage morphs into best-friendship, and that can be a very good thing.
There are many, many stories of love, all kinds. Gay Australians told Dalton their stories and often there were difficulties to overcome.
It’s not always human love, exactly. One guest at his table told of her passionate love for the city of Brisbane.
Age is not an issue. He is told of the love affair of an 85-year-old man with a 91-year-old woman. He’s her “boy toy.”
A woman sits and explains that she and her lover have had an open relationship for 13 years. She “is all for monogamy, as long as you’re growing.”
In a particularly odd chapter, Dalton hears of the love of a submissive for his dominatrix. There is some complicated navigating there to do.
The relationship between love and hate, two powerful feelings, is brought up.
Don Noble’s newest book is Alabama Noir, a collection of original stories by Winston Groom, Ace Atkins, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, and eleven other Alabama authors.