Lent

I identify as Episcopalian. I have an affinity for high catholic liturgy, and in my most present moments, it can lead to a transcendent moment during Communion. The ritual carries meaning.

I decided to observe Lent this year, which means (for me) I’ve decided to give up something.

              As an aside, I wish I had taken the ashes given my observance. It is a loss that I did not.

I thought it over what I should give up—I wanted it to be meaningful, challenging but not so challenging I would be doomed to fail. In the end, I opted for giving up the NEWS. I defined this as no clicking on news websites (CNN, Reuters, AP, ect…) or local sites (except for weather), and no TV news. I watch a lot of YouTube. There is a news subchannel, and that is off limits. However, anything that appears in my feed is fair game though discernment is a good practice if it’s within the “rules.”

I’ve been struck by a couple of things. First, I’ve had strong urges at times to click and read, and the urges feel similar to an addictive response. Second, my YouTube feed plus word of mouth has delivered a bewildering amount of news in the week and a half since Lent started.

First, a friend told me that perhaps the most powerful (and wanted) Mexican cartel leader had been killed, and that there were widespread retaliatory bombings. A few days later, a video popped up on my Youtube feed that Afghanistan and Pakistan’s simmering conflict had escalated to war. Then the next day, Warfronts, a channel I follow, covered the US-Isreal bombings of Iran, including the death of Iran’s supreme leader.  The Warfront video was on my feed. By the rules I set for Lent, I was permitted to watch it—and I did. Iran had launched waves of retaliatory missile and drone strikes throughout the region, often hitting softer civilian targets in Bahrain, Dubai, Isreal, and elsewhere. By the end of it, my anxiety had spiked. This is the kind of thing that cannot be left unfinished. Meaning, the US cannot walk away without ending the Iranian regime. It would be too dangerous to the future. And I don’t know what the cost will be or who will have to pay it.

For now, I’m not planning on watching more videos though having watched one, Youtube will send more my way. Nine days of disconnection from the news, and it feels like the world is spinning into dangerous places. I think this is something that a lot of people sense. It wasn’t long ago that a US strike nabbed Maduro — yet the world has already moved on— so much is going on. So many of the concerns that are getting play are in my judgment petty given the seismic forces tearing at the fabric of civilization that has in many ways overreached itself.

A correction may be coming. How that will look, who knows, but the Iranian war could be a metaphor for what is to come. And the uneasiness, mostly unspoken, will continue to grow on what we are to become.