Ash Wednesday Poem: Asserting My Rights

Asserting My Rights

What is it about Lent and me?
I just can’t give up.

When I give up coffee, I eat more chocolate.
When I give up fast food, I watch more TV.

When I put my loose change in the mite box,
I expect the box to be grateful.

Every Lent, I am an errant driver in a field
Striking the tree that I was determined to miss.

Forty days seem like forty years
When I know I will fail in forty seconds.

So this Lent, I am going to give up giving up.
Instead, I will assert my rights.

I will focus wholeheartedly on my rights.
I will hold closely to myself the things that I know are mine.

I will have a good time this Lent
because I will take on what I know to be true.

But, knowing my track-record in past Lents,
I will start with the right to keep my expectations low.

I will insist on the right to be wrong.
For forty days I think I can live with not always being so right.

I will assert my right to flawed.
Do you think for six weeks, I can be free of seeming so terrific?

I will ascent to my right to be uncertain
For a month, perhaps I will discover faith.

I will claim my right to be ignorant
After a season of knowing less, maybe I will know mystery.

I will act on my right to be weak
And, for a moment, I won’t pretend I own what strength I have.

I will revel in my right to be foolish
And catch a glimpse of how I am seen.

I will rest in my right to be a creature
And enjoy for a second my part in the creation.

I will exercise my right to surrender
and live, for now, in my right not to be God.

I wrote this in 2005. Someone in my parish asked for a copy. So I posted it again. -- atg+