But that '7 year itch' expression is well known because at some point in their lives, most people hit a wall--whether it's in their marriage, their careers...or even their lenten discipline. The honeymoon is over. You are far enough in that the newness and luster of the whatever has worn off, the end of the tunnel is a long way off, and everything just seems like work. And no one really cares anymore (if they ever did in the first place) so it's really on you since nobody's watching...a moment of existential truth on whether you still believe in what you are doing and what you have devoted yourself too.
Some days I have an excuse to drive (have to pick up kids after work, late meeting, etc), but some times I'm just lazy and hop in the car instead. People think I'm crazy for biking anyway, so it can be hard to keep finding the motivation to do it. But I always feel good when I arrive at work after a long ride in the saddle. I feel accomplished, endorphins coursing, through my blood, and my sore quads and my increased hunger tells me that I did something useful with my body. I can't say I look forward to the rides, but I rarely regret it once I've undertaken it.
Now that Lent is well underway and the novelties have worn off, it's time to get to work for real. The external disciplines exist because on our own it can be easy to shirk off things that are ultimately good for us--regular prayer, fasting and abstinence, almsgiving--and find excuses. The suffering that accompanies denial and self-discipline for the sake of our souls chafes and is uncomfortable, and it becomes more so when the devil whispers in our ear 'Just give this up already, yeah? None of it really matters anyway. Wouldn't you rather?..."
In doing a blog post a day over the course of Lent, I occasionally get bogged down and stuck in the mud, unable to come up with any new material or motivation to write and quoting Ecclesiastes that "THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN!!" But it's good practice for me--to do things even when you don't feel like it--and seems to jive with the discipline of Lent and learning how to love. When you love something enough, you'll eventually be called to suffer for it. I love my wife, and I would give my life for her...but that doesn't come naturally. We need to learn and practice--day by day, act by act, stroke by stroke--how to put to death our carnal, selfish tendencies, that which works against love and the good of another. We need to exercise love like a muscle, and we do it through the will.
In my early years of learning the craft and finding my voice I read a book by Anne Lammott on writing. One story she told stuck with me over the years:
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around buy brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'
Lent is the perfect season to practice. It is a means to an end, to deepen our prayer lives and train our bodies to bring our wills into alignment with the will of the Father, that it might be done "on earth as it is in Heaven." Each year around this time in the lenten season, when it gets to be a grind, to be work, to be unpleasant and unglamorous and monotonous and we second guess the commitments we have pledged to, then maybe we will get a taste of real life and real love--not our idealized version or it, not the honeymoon experience, but the nitty-gritty of daily life in relationship.
I do this stupid little thing with Deb to keep practicing in my marriage: Every time I serve up dinner and I have her plate and my plate, I always give her the plate I would want--the one with the bigger porkchop or the nicer salad, the one I would be more inclined to choose for myself. It's a little thing, and I don't know where I picked it up, but isn't marriage really just a series of little actions, that eventually accumulate into what makes the marriage? Isn't a ride to work the collective distance of thousands of pedal strokes that eventually get us there? Is Lent not a series of 'little deaths' culminating in that great death on Good Friday that would eventually lead to life, our ticket to eternity? As St. Teresa of Calcutta said, "We can do no great things....only small things with great love."
"Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory."
(2 Tim 2:10)
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