Ctrl-Alt-Delete

It seems to happen every Thursday. I try to work around it, but it happens anyway. I arrange for it happen while I am sleeping, but usually it greets me as soon as sit down at my desk. And when it does, I just have to wait. I can moan. I can groan. I can plead that I have a really important job to do and can’t this just wait?!! 

But it is going to happen. It needs to happen. Just get over it.

What I am talking about is, of course, the weekly Windows upgrade and the need for my computer(s) to accept it and reboot. And then there is the weekly and sometimes daily virus check and update that my anti-virus software requires.

I don’t know about you Mac people, but thanks to the nice people in Redmont, Washington, it is just a fact of life.

So, I can count on it. Every Thursday—or the first time I open my machine on the days following-- there I will sit, staring at my screen while the little spinney-thing spins away on my screen.

I used to resent it. (Well, okay, sometimes I still do.) But it just is. And you know what? I need it.

Every now and then, I come across a person who has never, ever given permission for the weekly update, or who puts it off. Or who has never upgraded their operating system. They say “nope, not today! I’m just too busy to stare my screen for three or five minutes, even if it runs in the background.  I’ll do it later.” Only “later” never comes, and then they discover that their system is no longer supported, or the various apps and software will no longer talk to each other, or to you, or (God forbid!) your machine catches a virus.

Sometimes we go into Lent doing the same thing. We think we can put it off. Or that Lenten updates are for weenies. Or, if we decide to go ahead and take the plunge, we go for total a do-it-yourself overhaul. You know… Completely new innards—a whole new me, but all by myself! Perhaps with the help of a self-help book, maybe an on-line course, and snippets of the Bible. 

But that doesn’t always go according to plan. 

Other times we might think that all that stuff about “giving up something for Lent” (which of course means making room for something new like prayer, or reading, or study, or care for the poor or needy) or that Bible stuff or that weird little book your priest has recommended is just too much. Who has time? Besides, I’ve got this covered! I can do this! I'm fine!

Once, many years ago, a colleague of mine, an ER nurse told me that she was going to have the best Lent ever. She had thoroughly planned for her spiritual make over. Diet, exercise, readings, and going to Mass every day, the whole megillah. A total new me (in Jesus)!

Then life happened. As she was leaving church on Ash Wednesday morning, and about to cross the street to her car, one of her brothers or sisters in Christ had gotten to their car, gunned the motor and sped out of the parking lot, driving through a big puddle and drenching my friend with muddy water and half-frozen winter muck. My friend, reverted to her natural state and loudly let the driver know what she thought of their driving. Then she stopped, embarrassed. She came into work feeling sad, and when I asked why she looked so sad, she told me what happened.

“My whole Lent is ruined!” she said. “It didn’t even last fifteen minutes!”

After standing with her in her sadness for a bit, I said “That’s great!” 

She looked at me like I had just grown two heads. 

“No, really! Because now that your wild expectations are out of the way, you can have a real, useful, renewing Lent.”

So maybe what we need isn’t a systems overhaul. Just a simple re-boot.

I think that this is a useful way to think about Lent and what we are doing for Ash Wednesday today. Rebooting. Doing a mild, annual, systems check and update. Nothing drastic, mind you. Just maintenance.

So when we decide to focus a little more on prayer, we are rebooting.

Or when we decide to give up certain foods or set aside certain practices, we are trying for an upgrade.

Or when we choose to do something to care for the poor or the outcast or the lonely, we are attempting to reorient our thinking and our doing.

It’s not just our phones or devices that need a periodic update. We all do. It’s just that it takes time. Sometimes we can reboot and still go on with our living. But sometimes we are need to just stop, listen to the silence. Do without for a moment. Think about who and whose we are. Upgrade. Reboot.

This is what Lent is. During this forty-day tithe of our time, are invited to take the time let God in, clean out the old useless code, er, way of being, and try something new. And in this way we make our selves ready to let in Jesus and walk with him through his passion.

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Here is the Ash Wednesday liturgy for St. John's Clearwater.