I committed to 40 days of writing, and then coronavirus crawled across the globe.

This is how life happens. Plans are made and circumstances chart their own course. Unexpected things, incomprehensible things, things we never heard of become our new normal: social distancing, global pandemic and thus, shutdown.

My professional life tripled overnight. I began working 50 hour weeks, and writing and life as we knew it went the way of the past.

But the fasting for Lent? My Lent, as in Lent-ish?  It has quietly continued, even without me, because we, as a society, have been fasting in some magnificent ways.

1. The Church is fasting from buildings and programs and has been living as sent, rather than gathered. We've retreated to neighborhoods and the internet. Spontaneous worship on social media, from the recognizable to the unknown girl with the messy bun, leggings, and a beat up guitar becomes a cathedral for the world on a screen.

2. Gone are the soapboxes and judgy posts on social media of those who have an opinion of everything and are happy to share it with you.

3. Families have fasted from extra-curricular everything and are eating home-cooked meals at the table together. It's like a Norman Rockwell painting with all the puzzles and games and togetherness while sideways rays from the sunset slant through the window, turning everything golden.

2. The women in my neighborhood walk with chalk and fill driveways with pastel scripture verses. They now "prayer walk" several nights a week, praying for protection and neighborly kindness and provision.

3. I've walked at dawn in my neighborhood before work because my statehouse walks at lunch are no longer possible. With the overload in my office, I'm fasting my lunch hour and working straight through. But a boss has generously brought lunch in for two weeks for good measure, morale, and in support of local small business. He has quietly led with generosity and grace. He has fed us, literally and figuratively.

4. In 10 days it will be Easter. We will celebrate a resurrection that interrupted life as everyone on earth knew it. It was a fast from mortality that will hold us in everlasting hope until he comes again.

People have been sick. People have died. We suffer from loneliness, isolation, and fear. The economy has suffered. But there are some good things if we are brave enough to see them.

Just maybe there is life behind a stone that was rolled in front of a grave that gives us something to look forward to, something with which to tenaciously stand up against the fear and the dire situation it stems from.

On the other side of death is resurrection. Until then, I will keep looking for light, finding the good, and discovering the beautiful surprises that come when things don't happen as you expected.

Jesus will be with us now, and there on the other side, too. There may be a measure of discomfort, uncertainty, grief, and loss for a time, but good and hope shine through in the midst of the suffering.

And maybe that's exactly what fasting is for in the first place. That we might go without the things we know so well that comfort us, in order to see the world with new eyes and hunger for that instead.


Photo Credit: ST, my neighbor

I opened the mailbox on Saturday and saw a name from the past pushing up through the stack of mail from the return address corner. An old acquaintance I haven't thought of in a lifetime.

He mailed me grainy pictures taken by a disposable camera circa 1986. Pictures of teenagers at Ship Island, one of whom was Jeff.

I don't think of him so much anymore. Until he died, it was the hardest thing I had ever faced. Since then there's been cancer, Alzheimer's, divorce, Hurricane Katrina, the unthinkable. So many people and beautiful things are simply gone.

Ru looked through the pictures and was struck by the one that was the ancestor of today's selfie. Jeff's face filled the lens with a clear image. He's sandy and salty, and I had forgotten his hair was a little curly like mine if it was humid. She said, "Look at him. I've never been able to make out his face in all the old photographs. And, now, there he is." She touched his dimple with her index finger, I think because she has one of her own.

I marvel every time I see my children's affinity for an uncle they never met. So I re-read all the posts I've written about him here over the years and allowed myself to think of him.

So much of life doesn't make sense. We always say that about the bad parts, but never do we say it about the good.

I remember leaning onto his casket, letting him hold me up one last time, and promising him I would think of him every day for the rest of my life. That was 26 years ago, when I was 25. I don't even know when I failed that vow, I'm just glad I did.

The sky has been heavy with overcast clouds the last few days. The whole world is thinking about sickness and death in the face of COVID-19 crawling its way around the globe. I don't remember a time when we've been in one accord globally like this.

I've seen panic, kindness, fear, greed, and love. People have receded with fear and with caution. The earth seems eerily abandoned by those who are shutting themselves in against the unknown and a foe much bigger than the frail human body. It makes us compliant, and rightly so.

But it also makes me want to live. In the face of threat from virus and the reminder of loss in my mailbox, I want to live.

Sometimes you have to let the dead things go so you can really live.

I want to love and show kindness and generosity in the face of fear, isolation, sickness, and horror. I want to be beauty and light to a dying world.

I choose hope in the face of sorrow. I choose words that rise, and I choose to trust in tomorrow. I choose to embrace the broken and the redeemed and the ache, and walk with a limp for all life has dealt me.

The world is slowing and it hurts because I've been trying to outrun pain. I need to go fast right now, and even that is being taken from me in the shutting down and shutting in against pandemic.

We are asked to withdraw from each other and activity, so I must learn to live with fear and death and distance, not outrun them. I must relearn to be quiet and at ease in the stillness and slowness.

On this earth, we find we must fast the things we long for, things that are scarce right now: togetherness. love, fellowship, communion. But these are the things we will see and know in their fullness and feast on forever in heaven.

Dear Future Self,

Man, what I'd give to be where you are. Before you even read this letter, look around you. Take a minute to take in your life. And don't take a single thing you see, feel, and know for granted.

Even if it's broken and scarred, I hope you see that it's beautiful.

I'm working so hard to be sure you end up safe, loved, and respected. I'm pretty sure you have these things from some amazing humans because you had them back then when you were me.

But I hope by now you are much better at giving these things to yourself. You used to be terrible at it.

You are where you are today because of me, your past self, at least in part.

I hope you look around your life and find health, peace, and joy. I hope you find Jesus, and family and friends.

I hope you find a bountiful dinner table and still find joy in feeding the ones you love. I hope laughter and deep conversations find you and yours lingering long over engaging ideas and wrestled faith, while a glass of good wine swirls in your hand, the dishwasher whirs in the background, and the night grows long.

I hope you talk about the books you're reading and never stop learning and growing. I hope you still run and have finally learned how to build a fire in the backyard without a starter log.

I hope you always say yes when someone asks you to go for a walk with them. How many healing miles did we walk? Only God knows.

May you be kinder, gentler, and present for people when they are devastated, because you learned the hard way what kind of healing salve that is, and how those things have actual super powers to bring a person back to life.

May you carry yourself with dignity and not take yourself too seriously, both at the same time.

May you never stop having fun.

I hope you are proud of your life, and are mostly happy.

I hope you know intimately who you are and confidently accept — no, approve — of the woman you became. You know better than I do what finding yourself cost us both. And I hope and pray it was worth the price.

You were small for far too long.

Don't ever forget you owe a debt to words. There were so many words.

There were mantras and confessions. There were revelations and declarations shouted and whispered.

You filled journals with handwriting. You read stacks of books and articles.

There were countless counseling sessions with a compassionate and wise therapist, who either rattled you or rallied you in fifty minute segments, and was discerning enough to know which to employ when.

You spent hours texting and typing, and on phone calls that added up to months of your life.

You said so many words, so many times, to a small trusted circle you couldn't keep track of what you said to whom.

I hope all of those friends are still with you and are deeply trusted. I hope they have been with you for years now and that you've had a chance to return the exquisite gift of listening.

I hope there's an army of new friends, too. You were lonely for so long.

God's word and prayer served you so well. These were the best words. I'm sure your knees are worn because you can no longer live without either.

They fed you when food could not, and they became the only way you knew to process this fallen-down life on earth.

You still have problems, I know. But you are better equipped for them than I was. That came to you as a gift from the years between you and me.

Life is never without its problems. But I worked hard for you to have a sense of rest in your soul that anchors you because you survived a dark time and you didn't give up on yourself. I pray the wisdom you gained became a grace you now give to others.

Don't ever forget the tears you cried, the sleepless nights, or how proud you became of who your children grew up to be. I hope they still inspire you, teach you, challenge you, and are dear, dear friends. I can't imagine how proud you are of them based on how proud I already am now.

Don't ever forget any of these things. I suspect that, from your vantage point, they are the redeemed parts of the journey.

I love you so very much, Dawn. Don't ever lose track of that love ever again, you hear me?

You are the reason I do all the hard things these days. You are beautiful inside and out. We all are. You are strong, wise, and have a purpose.

Don't ever take for granted where you are, and all you have, including your challenges. Much of it was learned and earned the hard way, and some came as a gift of grace. But everything about who you are was forged in the fire, and if it lasted it's precious metal.

So you better be chasing your dreams hard, and not wasting a minute of your life. You better be wild and free, with equal measures of abandon and reverence in all you do. It better be freaking beautiful!

Man, what I'd give to be where you are, and know you in your fullness.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that as beautiful as it is where you are, getting there is going to be worth the journey and will be something you wouldn't have wanted to miss in the end. So I'll stay in the here and now, and work towards getting us there, even though I've asked God a million times, "Please, let's skip ahead to better days."

I promise I'll get up every morning and keep fighting for you. I won't let you down, because you're worth it.

I hope you know that you're worth it in your bones up there in our future together, because, right now, you're still learning that glorious truth, and you don't know it very well yet.

I can make you that promise to keep fighting for you, because when I get weary, I have a body of friends and family that love me, and carry me when I can't go on, and don't, won't, leave me.

I could never do this alone. I'm convinced we need people in our lives, a generous handful of beautiful, broken people who love unflinchingly. I have a hunch you became that kind of person.

Never discount the power of love, Dawn. And don't grow cynical.

Someday, if you find yourself in the middle of something you have no idea how to get through, stay there. Don't rush it. Relax into the hard middle and feel your way through. Stumble in awkward stammers if that's all you can manage in order to get to the other side. You already know from the past it's worth it. Keep going and never give up.

Until then, please know I can't wait to meet you. I'm pretty sure you're an amazing person. And I hope you smile ... a lot.

My all,
Your Former Self