A-Ventin’ before A-Lenten gets A-Endin’

“When you have to endure many kinds of trial, my brothers, then you can only be glad of it, for you know that inner strength of patience grows in you through the testing of your faith. But this patience must lead to fulfillment so that you become complete and whole human beings, not held back in any respect” (James 1:2-4).

My computer died.

My computer that’s been with me since the pandemic, that’s been with me through a breakdown in New York, a move back to the South, a move out West. It’s been by my side. It’s been an ally. Sometimes it was the only interaction I’d have for days at a time just typing… just putting whatever crossed my mind into it. It became a digital portrait of who I have been, who I am, and who I am becoming. It was who I wanted to be and it was who I was at my lowest.

It was the first thing I ever bought with my own money that cost more than a grand.

I walked it home from the Best Buy near Barclay’s and it started raining on the way back home. I stood under a scaffolding for thirty minutes to keep the box from getting wet.

I loved that thing.

And it’s gone.

I almost made it to Easter.

I got sick the day after Ash Wednesday for a week. I got better and celebrated three years sober and the day after I woke up to find my tires slashed.

Three of them. Three.

Then a couple days later I got sick again for another week. I got better, got an A on a stats exam and attended Palm Sunday Liturgy. Holy Week has begun, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be baptized in just a week’s time.

Then my computer.

I took it to get repaired because the screen broke and the diagnosis was terminal. I walked out with two-hundred bucks with an inconclusive feeling, as if I’d just rented the laptop out and I’d see it again in a few days. It’s gone though. It happened before I could even think.

It reminds me of Jean Louise.

Jean Louise was my cat and she was the sweetest gosh darned cat that you’ve ever gosh darned. I loved that cat and she did a lot to help pull me out of some bad places. She was my first cat and she was mine. She was found in a Captain D’s parking lot which means that we had two things in common from the jump: fried fish filets and hanging out in parking lots.

I fricking loved that cat. And she loved me, too.

Five years ago I moved to New York in March. I moved with a backpack and a hoodie where I stayed on a friend’s couch while I looked for an apartment and a job. It snowed the whole time. I was drunk the whole time. I found a job. I found a place. I did it by myself, within thirty days, because I had to. It was a blur, the move from, the move to, it’s all a flurry, stressful blur. I was lonely, I was cold, and I was sad.

The night before my flight to LaGuardia I was going to meet my best friends in the world for one last night together before I moved when I noticed my cat was becoming unresponsive and not drinking any water. She just got… despondent. I didn’t know what was wrong, I got worried and I took her to the vet on March 7, 2019 at 10PM.

They put her down at half past midnight.

I loved that cat. And she was gone.

I cried on the ride to the airport and then I didn’t cry again. I got on the flight and I met my friend in Manhattan. I faked a smile, thanked him for his couch, and the next day I woke up hungover in Crown Heights.

One year later on March 7, 2020 I woke up hungover for the last time.

Two years after that I moved to Albuquerque in March. I drove to New Mexico because I wanted to move somewhere no one knew me, maybe never be seen from again. I had a place lined up and it fell through in Amarillo. There was a blizzard that rolled through while I was there. It was windy, wet, and I didn’t even have a couch waiting for me.

I kept driving anyway. I found a job. I found a place. I did it by myself, within thirty days, because I had to.

I made it to town just in time for Tenebrae.

Lent is almost over, Easter is almost here, and I’m busy worrying about my stats homework.

The Lenten season is supposed to bring us closer to God through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is supposed to help curb our focus toward Him Who gave us life through His death. All I’ve focused on for the past five and a half weeks is how miserable I’ve been since Ash Wednesday.

Some Christian I am.

Sick, slashed tires, a computer gone. It’s hard but a Garden of Gethsemane it is not. And maybe that’s a bad perspective. How are we going to compare ourselves to Christ? How can we even? He is the Lord our God. It’s not like He is the guy at the office who got promoted instead of us.

We are trying to be perfect like Him, that is true, but what is perfection anyway?

Perfection is… dying to give life to humanity?

If that’s perfection than none of us need to be perfect because Christ has come and done this, He’s been perfect. Perfection isn’t becoming a Messiah, but perfection might be in how we engage with the world.

The slashed tires for instance, what am I going to do? File a police report and wait by the phone for decades waiting for APD to find the responsible party so they can know how much of an inconvenience that was for me on a Monday morning?

No, I’ll just call a tow and get the tires replaced, thanking God that two of them were insured.

My computer died. What am I going to do? Lament over it for weeks, and freak out that I can’t do stats homework so I stop going to class altogether and drop the course with three weeks left in the semester?

No, I’ll just use the school’s computers and thank God I got a little cash for selling my laptop for parts.

I’m sick. Am I going to putter around feeling sorry for myself and hating how much I’m missing even though it’s been gnarly weather all month?

Well, yeah… yeah I did do that. What can I say, I’m not perfect. But I can also thank God that my partner really showed up for me even living a couple states away by sending me food and her calling in a friend to drop me off soup. A friend that I’ve started hanging out with now that I’ve got to be better.

We may not have to die to give life to humanity, but I guess it’s close enough dying to what we think should happen or falling into self-pity. That can be crucified—that can be put to death so that what we do have can be given life without competing with our want to be miserable.

So, I don’t know why this is happening. March has always been a trying month in the past (I tend to get melancholy when springtime comes for that reason), but nowhere near like this—so blatantly in your face about how much Lent is Lenting. At first it felt like a little bit of spiritual warfare, like demonic forces were trying to… I guess taunt me? It’s not as if they can make me fall off the path, you know? They couldn’t dissuade me from New York. They couldn’t dissuade me from New Mexico. They sure as Shirley can’t dissuade me from baptism.

I don’t know what’s theologically sound, but I think of demonic activity being something not willed by God, but allowed. I don’t think it’s God seeing how bad we want things or what we’re willing to do in order to attain something. That might be a part of it, however it feels more likely that what is allowed to happen makes us who we are trying to become. It’s a tempering process that shapes us to be better at… existing. I had to get tough and used to persevering when I moved to New York. I had to adapt and flow moving to New Mexico. In between, moving back home for an intermission, I had to get fiery to move in a direction—any direction. It’s all tempering and it’s all strengthening our resolve, our ability to change direction, and our ability to have a direction to begin with.

It all serves a purpose.

Everything.

We’re being taught that we’re always a little bit stronger than we think, that when life gets constricting we can keep pushing and it’ll be worth it. It’s like hiking or going twelve rounds at the heavy bag: halfway through it feels like our body is going to give out, like we don’t have anymore left in the tank. We do, though, and we only learn that by gritting our teeth and trudging onward, demons and slashed tires be damned.