On giving up complaining...

For the past few years I have tried to give up something for Lent.

Five years ago, four years ago, and three years ago I tried to give up swearing.  Honestly, it just never took.  I would drop a four-letter word and never think twice about it.

Last year I decided to go for something different.  Rather than give up something like sugar or chocolate, I decided to give up saying critical things about other people.  If you want to know whether you are critical of others, I recommend trying to give up saying negative things about people.

From that I experience I learned two key things.  First, I learned that if you give something up it is exceptionally healthy if you have something to replace that thing.  Second, I learned that when you are trying to give something up, you become incredibly aware of that thing.

This year for Lent, I decided to give up complaining.  I spend about three hours a day driving to and from work, so my first thought was to give up road rage (oh yes, I have road rage).  However, on the first day of Lent one of my friends sent me an article on complaining.  The article stated that complaining is – despite common thought – totally unnecessary.  You may be asking yourself, “Don’t you need to vent or get something off your chest?”  It turns out that the happiest people complain the least.  Further, research has found that individuals that complain are usually upset longer than people that internally process.  

When I was younger I remember being told that the point of Lent was to suffer.  Christ was tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights.  I was told that we give up something for Lent so we can understand that suffering.  The thing is, if you are a human you know what suffering is because we are alive.  We have all experienced loss, pain and suffering.  

Twenty some years later, for me, the point of Lent is to remove something from your life, and replace that thing with Christ.

I had no idea how much I complained.  I made it one entire day without complaining.  Then, on day two I started complaining by 10:00am.  By noon I started feeling heartburn because I felt the complaints boiling up inside my chest.  When 2pm rolled around I started noticing my co-workers complaining about other people, and felt jealous that I could not join in.  By the drive home, I was concerned I would not make it to day three.  Thankfully, by 7pm I remembered the point of Lent.  Rather than start complaining, I took quiet time to pray to God.  I told God all of my complaints for the day and asked for peace in my heart.

Since Wednesday, I have complained one time.  What have I learned so far?

I have learned that there is a big difference between describing and complaining.  I have a bad neck from an old car accident.  My neck hurts quite frequently.  I have to tell my husband if I am in pain so he can help me.  Describing my pain is way different than complaining about it.  On Friday I told my husband that my neck was hurting and I needed him to help me by carrying something heavy.  That was descriptive.  Complaining would have been if I said, “I am so annoyed that my stupid neck hurts.  I am so sick of this crap.  Blahblahblah.”  The difference between describing and complaining is where you place the power.  Describing is stating how something is or was.  Complaining is putting the power of the situation onto someone or something else.  It complete removes your power as an individual from the situation.  I had no idea that I had been giving my power away.  When I complain, I remove my responsibility on an incident and place it on something else.

The best thing I have discovered so far is that because I cannot complain, I have to address problems immediately.  For example, today I was frustrated that my husband did not wipe off the counter.  Typically, I would have held on to that and told him sometime in the future that I would like him to work on that habit.  Instead, I told him right away that I was feeling frustrated.  He told me he was happy that I was upfront with him and told him right away.  I was shocked.  I thought I would be a nagging wife if I complained about something as unimportant as wiping the counter.  Now, I am wondering if I have been complaining for years about things I could have addressed right away?  

I am only four days in.  I cannot say that everything has been easy.  It has felt challenging not to complain.  However, I know I can do it.  If I fail every now and then that is ok.  I am trying my best.  Most importantly, for the next thirty six days I have the opportunity to turn to Christ to help strengthen me.  I am excited for the adventure.

On gold...

I have tried to write this several times without being too sappy or trite – because sappy and trite are things of which I am fond.  However, it could not be done.  With that warning, here goes.

On Gold…

The first time I met “Mary” she was less than two months away from her death.  She was nearly catatonic, and the only words she would ever speak were “Oh come let us adore him.”  Mary’s skin was paper thin, and I could every blue vein in her tiny body.  She had these huge shiny brown eyes – where – when you looked into them – you felt a sense of kindness you never knew existed.  On her left hand she wore tiny gold band had left a permanent mark on her forth finger.  When I walked in the room to meet Mary, everything felt different.  The sun was setting and as it sank in the sky it came through the windows and lit up Mary’s hair – making the gray strands appear golden.  Mary was – the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  Every patient and nurse at the hospice was drawn to Mary despite the fact that she could barely move or speak. 

I have heard stories about gold since I was a young whippersnapper (yeah, I know I still am).  I remember hearing that gold was the most precious of all metals.  It is so precious it was gifted to Christ, thought of as God poop by the Aztecs, and is traded in tons every day around the world.  For hundreds of years, gold is a thing for which people have sailed across oceans, killed women and children, starved nations and raped the earth.   

Beyond being a tangible metal, gold is also quite symbolic.  Several religions tell of beautiful things called auras.  In simple terms, aura is the energy that a person radiates. Some believe that auras can be so astounding that within moments of meeting a person, you can tell whether his/her energy is bad (and you want to run away) or good (and you feel drawn in).  The most sacred (and rare) of all auras is the golden aura.  The golden aura is symbolic of wisdom, intuition, divine protection – and – enlightenment.

Moving away from metals and auras and back to Mary….  Since Mary could not speak, the first time I met Mary I decided to read to her.  The hospice has only two books on file – both of them by Helen Steiner Rice (cheesy rhyming wizard to the stars).  With one hand I held the book and flipped through the pages and with the other I grasped Mary’s thin flesh.  I read a few terrible rhyme schemes straight out of cruddy Hallmark cards before I landed upon another story about gold.  This one was titled, “The Windows of Gold.”

The story is about a little boy who lived on a mountain.  Shining off in the distance from the boy’s mountain home he sees gold.  The little boy admires the gold so much that he leaves his mountain town to find it.  The little boy walks and walks until he comes to a city.  In the city, he finds that what was shining was not gold – but the reflection of gold from the city in which he came.  The story ends on …. “Is not a far distant place, somewhere.  It's as close to you as a silent prayer.  And your search for God will end and begin.  When you look for Him and find Him within.”

At this point, I am reading to a dying woman - watching the gold radiate from her body.  So yes, I started crying. 

That is the thing about gold.  People spend years searching for it.  They give it to others, they think it is God poop, they kill for it, rape for it, search for it, do everything for it.  However, I saw gold.  I saw the most precious thing in the world.  And I did not find it by murdering women or children or digging through the mines of another country.  I found gold radiating from the aura of a dying woman.  It was so strong that it radiated from every pore, every cell and every gray hair on her withering body.

Mary will forever be one of the most amazing people I have ever met.  She is amazing because she was the first person I met who realized that gold is something that comes from within.  Mary found gold through a life of prayer and devotion, as symbolic in the only words she would speak… “Oh come let us adore him.”  However, that is not to say that there are not millions of ways to find gold within.  Prayer, meditation, silence, mounting climbing, baking, sewing, knitting, hiking, anything that involves self reflection.  Gold is there.  It is in all of us – just waiting for that moment when we realize it has been in us all along.