Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
For Lent I have given up inactivity. And wine, some weeknights, and social media. Coward’s choices, if I’m honest. It is not so hard to give up wine and social media. I love to move, so giving up physical inactivity is not truly a sacrifice.
It is the inactivity of my spirit, of my conscience, of my soul that I want to let go of. As the forty days of Lent wear on, I find what holds me back is not a basic laziness but fear. I am afraid. Sunday morning fear kept me from answering a knock on our door. We have complained about our newspaper carrier a few times of late. The paper arrives midmorning or not at all, and now she has started putting our paper with the neighbors. My husband had just called again and let them know we had to walk to our neighbor’s house to get our paper for the past three days, and when I heard the knock I spied a pink fleece hood. I was certain it was the newspaper carrier coming to yell at us. I entreated my husband to open the door. He’s good at getting yelled at and dealing with people who are a little unhinged. He does it all the time at work, and sometimes at home. He lumbered from his office where he’d been working, opened the door, and there stood a young Black man wrapped in a pink fleece blanket, holding a book from the free library in our front yard. His smile and eyes were wide open. “Can I just take this?” he asked, holding up Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My husband nodded. “Yeah, man, take as many as you want. That’s what it’s there for.” The young man nodded, smiled, and I yelled weakly from behind my husband, “You can have as many books as you want!” He nodded again as he descended our front steps, taking just the one book. Fear kept me from opening the front door and having that interaction. I was so touched by the young man’s consideration, which my husband pointed out was wise self-preservation. Our town is not always friendly to people of color and I’m sure he had reasons to be cautious. All the same, I’d missed out on a sweet interaction because I was afraid. And if it had been the newspaper carrier, I could have handled it. I’ve learned to deal with irrationally angry parents and enraged four-year-olds, after all. Fear has kept me quiet all these years quiet. I silenced my voice because I feared being ridiculed. And surely I would’ve been, I will be, but fear and silence become their own burden far greater than the sting of rejection and ridicule. I’ll keep giving up inactivity, a little bit of wine and Facebook. They are good sacrifices to make. Maybe I’ll give up a little fear, too.
1 Comment
rebah6
3/9/2021 07:22:48 am
I loved this reflection! Fear can hold us back in so many ways! This was a beautifully written story. I enjoyed how the ending came back to the beginning.
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