“Almighty God… Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations…”

What is either getting or distracting your attention these days:

Making ends meet in your household economy? A parent’s health; your own? War? Relationship? Children? Aging?

Can you see how a lot of what might be on your mind and in your heart are ‘temptations’? Temptation isn’t just about whether or not to eat that doughnut. Neither does all temptation start out by moving you in the direction of doing something wrong—thoughts, words and things done or left undone that will result in what we classically label as ‘evil’. Temptations are also those worries that weigh upon us good folk and cause anxiety. For that matter, we might even be tempted by the idea of doing the good (that we, ourselves, could do such and such in order to bring about a better situation, a better world). Then again, that same noble ‘to do list’ might lead you and me to fret that there is no way we could accomplish x-y-z, that it is best we disabuse ourselves of such utopian fantasies, that it might just be smarter to mind one’s own little patch of turf. That leads to the temptation to just be and do what tends to cultivate and maintain a sense of normalcy. Yeah, I’ll just take care of my own little patch of turf—not disrupting anything or bothering anyone. I’ll be a good neighbor; wait and put my trash out the evening before pick-up.

Hmm, might this be the really big temptation—attempting to enclave myself in my own little world. If that’s so, it would be better to eat the doughnut this Lent, with a cup of coffee, while reflecting on the ways we shy away from truly engaging with others—especially others who appear different or who are particularly in need.

Yes, for that matter, rather than “giving up” for Lent, maybe it would be better to “take on.” True, eschewing the sweet for a time might help you reduce your dependency on it. However, that is all about you. So instead of giving up, what might you give during this season—how might you practice going out of yourself for others, so that after the Lenten season, you will have established a discipline of being for others?

Yours needn’t be some monumental project. Rather, what small steps can you take in the direction of the other person rather than back stepping your way into your own safe space?

Why bother? Because most of us, when we experience the interconnections between people, then experience a richer, more beautiful life. That’s what Jesus was teaching: that the things which distract and worry us (remember that list at the beginning of this piece?) come to be understood and felt in a whole new way as a result of being open to and active about the interconnectedness of being. Everything is all interconnected—no my space, your space; rather all in all. God all in all. It'sall God's time and space, and we all are related in it.