February 17: Bring Forgiveness, Fat Tuesday, Prayer for Understanding

He went to church and prayed for guidance, begging God to bring forgiveness into his heart.  He wold kneel before the creche, the crucifix, and wonder how and why all these things had happened.  At night he would dream of black threads twisting in the air and slipping into his body from afar.  Though he bowed his head and trembled at the funeral, though he spoke kindly with the priests and repeated to himself a thousand times that God was good and that the manifestations of evil that come to men are ultimately explicable in some divine way, His wisdom greater than what any of them would ever know, Ives felt a great numbness descending over him.

The numbness that descends upon Ives after the murder of his son, Robert, lasts a very long time.  Not weeks or months or years.  It lasts decades.  Faced with the senseless death of his good, pious son, Ives struggles with God, wanting to hate Him for his loss.  Ives doesn't turn his back on his faith, but he spends his time questioning and doubting.


I find myself in much the same state as Ives at the moment.  I don't know why God has allowed my sister to become so sick, to lose a job to which she's dedicated so much of her life.  It doesn't make sense to me.  My sister is no saint, but she's a good person.  Generous.  Loving.  I want to believe that she's going to be better off, that this whole mess is some kind of strange blessing.  But I can't get there right now.  I'm angry.

It's Fat Tuesday.  Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Lenten season.  Ash Wednesday.  I haven't even given any thought to my Lenten sacrifices this year.  I've been too busy, too tired, too worried, too pissed.  I can't see through this weird fog of confusion.  I don't necessarily see God right now as benevolent and loving.  He seems a little distant.  I know that's not true, but it's where I am spiritually at the moment.

I started 2015 with all kinds of hope.  I knew it was going to be better than 2014.  Well, my sister's in the hospital, soon to be fired from her job.  My other sister totaled her car at the beginning of January.  My hopes of getting a full-time teaching job at the university are slowly evaporating.  I'm struggling.  I can't be Job, thanking God in the face of tragedy.

Maybe that's what I need to do this Lent.  I need to pray for understanding.  Meditate on what all this means.  I know God loves me in ways I will never comprehend.  I think I should start focusing on God's love.  That may help me.  I'll try to find one example of God's love in my life every day of Lent.  That will be difficult for me, as I'm a natural fatalist.

Saint Marty has his work cut out for him these next 47 days.

If you can't read the caption, it says, "Job!  I hear you've got a book out!"