Reading Francis

I was kind of hoping I could just give up social media for Lent.

Actually, that was my plan – to give up scrolling, as I did last year. God had other plans, I guess. 

While I was praying on Ash Wednesday about what was getting in the way of me trusting God, what I got back was the need to surrender my future to Him. Social media would have been a lot easier.

I think that some people are tempted to live their lives in the future, while others are tempted to live their lives in the past. For us future-livers, that can look like worry, or constantly planning, or just losing ourselves in daydreaming. For the past-livers, it can be rehearsing past wrongs, or regretting past mistakes, or wistful nostalgia. Maybe your experience is different; I’d love to know if there are other options.

Regardless, I don’t know that past- or future-living is bad per se, but we can miss a lot of the present moment, where life truly happens, if we’re caught up in another verb tense. More than that, at least for me, living in the future is a way to feel in control of my destiny. If I game out all the options and scenario-plan for every eventuality I can think of, I think, I’ll be OK. This despite the fact that my lived experience shows me that there are always options that live in my blindspots until they become the realities that actually happen.

So for Lent, I’m trying to give up when I find myself fixating on what the future may bring, whether it’s in trying to plan for it or just investing my energy in fears and hopes. I guess if you’re a past-focused person, it might mean giving up whenever you find yourself dwelling on something that happened.

I’ve written before about St. Ignatius of Loyola’s prayer of surrender called the Suscipe:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
My memory, my understanding
And my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.

It’s a tough one, but I am guessing that, at this rate,I’ll know it by heart before Lent is over.

Social media would have been a lot easier to surrender.