!Lenten uncertainty
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agk's diary
24 February 2024 @ 06:11 UTC
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written on X61, hp vf15" monitor, model m keys
in kitchen, sleepily, as house sleeps
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Jesus fasted and prayed. In Gaza 700,000 starve.
A couple dozen died of starvation in North Gaza
in the last three months. In two weeks the Muslim
ummah starts its fast and prayer.
In years past to prepare for His death and
resurrection Evy and I chanted psalms, prayed our
way through our church's directory. I started on
the psalms this year and stopped. The church we
attend now has no directory.
Starvation, real starvation, takes a long time. A
healthy adult can live more than thirty days with
no food, robbing fat from around the brain, heart,
reproductive organs. With dehydration, diarrhea,
chronic malnutrition, or high physiological or
psychological distress it looks different.
My public prayers in church for specific
populations in Gaza might have been prideful
grandstanding. For Lent, I pray for them silently,
a small fast from the risk of pride.
I'm essentially observing Lent alone this year. It
feels like the Nativity was just last week, wise
men arrived yesterday, and now I'm preparing for
the mystery of the Passion. Where were the three
years of ministry? I wonder if His mother felt this
sense of foreshortened time. Our time with each
other is short.
Today Israel killed another 100-200 people, mostly
women and children, and injured another 200-300, as
it does every day. Its targeting algorithms keep
daily casualties in this range. Tomorrow my country
delivers another thousand 500-pound MK-82 bombs,
precision guidance kits, and fuses. It only takes
three to five a day to meet Israel's daily death
goals.
The world changes at its core every Lent; this
Lent. The steadfast teach steadfastness. Death's
nearness invites care for the living. God cherishes
and aids the downtrodden. Among them He chooses to
be born, be friends, live, and die. Promises of
earthly reward from the tempter in the wilderness
remain as empty as ever.
In the kitchen tonight I talked to roommate in
frustration about the unseriousness of [nearby
city] for Palestine and the dire situation. I wish
Gaza was bigger I said. The Ukraine-Russia front's
long enough to consume our stocks of artillery,
shells, missiles, and launch platforms; countries
vast enough for noncombatants to get away from the
front.
Ukraine can't consume our aerial bombs because it
doesn't have air supremacy. Israel doesn't need
many to kill everyone in Gaza. I yelled in
frustration at my daughter when she walked into the
kitchen where we talked after she was supposed to
be in bed.
Daughter cried. Evy lay with her. To Evy she said:
Mama was not a patient with me. She yelled at me.
I cried.
She did not understand. I don't understand how to
observe Lent this year, how to be faithful, how to
pray the prayer and make the fast that would be
most pleasing to my God.
Mama? daughter asked yesterday morning. Can you
turn into a bigger woman, please?
