Another Lenten season begins!
I did not expect that this Lent would be a big one.
The other day I was reading the final few cantos of Purgatorio - normally not among my favorite parts of the poem - but I came across a section in canto 31 that practically enacted an ontological change in me. Dante has just encountered Beatrice in the Garden of Eden and is shaking in his boots to find himself in her presence. And she doesn't make it easy for him. She confronts him instantly for turning his love from her and all Holy Goodness to lesser things - some other girl, other concerns that couldn't possibly bless him. She says his "wings should not have been weighted down only to await more blows." At the sound of this rebuke Dante loses the ability to speak and collapses into sobs.
"As a crossbow cracks, when it is loosed after
cord and bow have been drawn too far, and the
bolt strikes the target with less force:
so I broke under this heavy burden, gasping
forth tears and sighs, and my voice was weakened
along its passage.
Therefore she to me: 'Within your desires for
me, which were leading you to love the Good
beyond which there is nothing one can aspire to,
what ditches across your way, or what chains did
you find, that you should so strip yourself of the
hope of passing beyond them?
And what comforts or what advantages did you
see displayed on others' brows, that you should
parade before them?" (Purg. 31.16-30)
My time at UCLA has consisted of a continuous drawing back of the crossbow. Aimed at a singular, impossible goal, I have drawn that cord tighter, tighter, tighter during every moment that I've been in this program. If I stay up later. If I read another page. If I apply for another thing. If I try harder in my writing. Even when all of this started to make me really stressed and anxious, I approached wellness like the sharpening of another weapon that would help me succeed professionally. The only reason I paid attention to my stress and anxiety was that it was interfering with my work. And so the visits to CAPS, dedication to an exercise routine, writing groups, timing my workday for maximum productivity, the right white noise machine, the perfect study partners, the right diet. And so on.
Ever since Memorial Day of last year, a few days before my Masters exam, I have been entirely overcome with fear. I have felt so powerless and worthless that I haven't been recognizable to myself. I spent my whole summer in Italy feeling numb and paralyzed. The fall quarter contained enough of a familiar rhythm to allow me to cruise blindly and quietly for a while, but work started taking me twice as long and I found I had little to give. I felt some refreshment over Christmas break, but as soon as school started again in January, I descended into a depression so deep that my loved ones feared leaving me alone. Every time I sought professional help I was prescribed more medication and more therapy, and I was diagnosed with PTSD. Work has been next to impossible. My little Latin assignments that took an hour last quarter have taken me three to four hours, if I can manage them at all. My future has seemed so cloudy that I haven't been even able to imagine it. The pressure to constitute exam lists and get ready for a huge performance in June has been crippling. I've so longed to desire things, or even be able to hope for a better future. It's actually amazing to me how totally convinced I was that I had no value.
Last week the cord on that crossbow was finally drawn tight enough that I, too, broke under this heavy burden. It was violent. And I, too, gasped forth tears and felt like I was going to suffocate. I uttered the name of God in the weakest possible voice, and then started compulsively saying "It's over," over and over again. I meant that I was over. My future. My career. My worth and goodness. My personhood. My bright life, my bright self, losing my grasp on the tail end of the cord of my being and dissipating into a sinking, deep nothingness. It's over.
In that moment, I happened to glance at Instagram and came upon a short clip that said:
"What do you do when you're at the end of your rope? When you've done everything you can think of and the situation is still staring you in the face. What do you do? You pray the first line of Psalm 118:
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His Mercy endures forever.
But things are not turning out!
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His Mercy endures forever.
But it looks like the devil is winning!
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His Mercy endures forever.
These are the words that Jehosaphat put in the mouths of his soldiers and by the time they came to the battlefield, the enemies fought among themselves, and they spent the next few days collecting the jewels the enemy had left behind."
Within an instant, I forgot myself and remembered God's goodness. Making yourself the protagonist of your own story is perhaps the most damaging thing you can do. Suddenly all of that tension was broken, and the entire apparatus was shattered.
I am opting out of the tension now. It is God who hold my future. It is God who bestows my worth. The hold of all of my mental diseases, my disordered thinking about myself, my obsession with excelling under assessment - it is all broken now.
It's 11:57PM and Ash Wednesday is three minutes away. I have to write one more page of a conference paper that is a day late. It's hard work, and I am very tired.
I do not expect the rest of this road to be easy, and my labors in scholarship have only just begun. But I am no longer the glistening weapon drawn back under tighter and tighter tension. I am a sheep in the flock. Simple and humble, content to be shepherded among my fellow sheep by He who directs me. It will not be without pain and difficulty, but it matters less now, for this is not my story. This is God's story.
So I head into this season of Lent in joyful, relieved surrender. I am going to fast tomorrow, and I will see what happens when I begin the Daniel Fast for the remainder of Lent. I hold it with open hands. My intension is to worship God and read his Word constantly. I step into this Lent in a posture of rest, and I want to be sheltered behind his shield and beneath his wing, and eat from the garden he has created for me. Let his name be praise. Give thanks to Him for He is good, and His mercy endures forever. Amen.
