So I’m a few weeks into my Lenten fast. I have given up all
violent media this time. This is harder than you might think, even for a fairly
passive guy like me. Actually, I blew it on the first day.
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| Abbey of the Genesee |
On Ash Wednesday, the wife, the son and I rode over to the
Abbey of the Genesee, a Benedictine trappist monastery in Piffard, NY famous
for their breads. (http://www.geneseeabbey.org)We
bought lots of loaves (mmm, raisin bread…) and then slipped into the chapel for
vespers.
If you’ve never attended a session of the Liturgy of the
Hours, you should seriously consider it. It is peaceful, reflective, beautiful
and wonderfully restorative.
Well,
usually. On this fine afternoon, the chosen psalms for recitation included
139 (If only you would slay the wicked, O God)
and 140 (let the mischief that is on
their lips bury them. Let hot burning coals be poured upon them : let them be plunged into that miry pit from which
they shall never arise.). This was incredibly violent
stuff, even when chanted with placid monks in front of a minimalist stone altar. Check that - especially when chanted with placid monks in front of a minimalist stone altar. The effect was chilling! In a place of high Roman Catholic holiness on the very first day of Lent, I broke
my fast before I’d really even started. Oh, the irony.
As
it turns out, this experience was fair warning for what has followed. Violence
is so deeply woven into American culture that it is nearly impossible to avoid.
I lean over a pew before church to joke with a young congregant and he’s deeply
engaged in a light saber duel on his hand-held video game. I sit down to watch
the Daily Show and have to avert my eyes from a commercial for an automatic
bill pay service that features a malevolent, angry bill collector shattering
glass and breaking down doors to deliver an invoice. At a hotel in Binghamton last weekend I had to turn off the
cable tv because the commercials inserted into even the mildest of programs
featured a ton of violent content.
Last night at band practice I began to show the boys and
girl a rendition of Let It Be from one of my favorite movies (Across the
Universe), only to realize I’d have to shield my eyes through the first 1/3 of
the song.
Ridiculous? Yes, it is. The lengths to which we must go
to honor a somewhat arbitrary decision is part of the glory of a Lenten commitment.
It is maddening, imbalancing and terribly inconvenient --all things a good reflective faith challenge should be. These passing weeks help me realize how indifferent
or even accepting I have become toward
violence. I didn’t realize how ubiquitous it has been in my supposedly peaceful life.
