Penitence and Confession: No More Driving?

Today was Ash Wednesday, a day when the Church around the world gathers to consider its relationship to God, to offer repentance and confession, and to vow changes for the Lenten season.

This evening our church bulletin described this Lenten season, beginning today, as a time "particularly appropriate" for new beginnings in faith, and for returning to the Lord. We sang together the simple prayer, create in me a clean heart, O God, and read in the Scriptures about lives lived in true worship. As we were symbolically marked with ashes, we were asked to believe the Gospel, to be cleansed as we remembered our baptisms, and to remember that we are from dust, and to dust we shall return. It was a beautiful juxtaposition of our humanity and Christ's divinity. The ash cross on my forehead was a powerful reminder of the salvation offered to me in one act on the cross, and in every day of my life.

I left for church having not given a whole lot of thought to giving something up for Lent (I don't usually), or even considering what I might change for the next 40 days. I believe that Lent is not a time of deprivation for sacrifice's sake, but a time of considering what needs changing in my life to make room for God and the sacrifice God's work asks of me.

In a conversation with a good friend, musing about what this sort of deprivation/life-change/new habit might look like, it occurred to me that one way I succumb to a life of excessive luxury is very simple and often looked at as a necessity: my car. Yes, I own one in the city; yes, it can be very helpful, and occasionally necessary. But, equally YES: I drive way more than is necessary, in a city already full of cars and expensive gasoline. I have chosen this luxury of independence, last-minute decision making, and (sometimes) general laziness over the very sensible, and often more-affordable, plethora of public transportation methods available within a very short distance from my home. And so, beginning with the season of Lent, I will strive to make this luxury a thing of the past, to be more conscious of where and how I drive. I am giving up driving in the city limits for the next 40 days; public transportation for me it will be. I say this knowing there are instances where I will be in a car (such as tomorrow night when I am coming home with my roommate from a taping of Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! downtown, and she will have her car as she is on her way home from a hospital in Joliet); I also do not see a way around driving my car this weekend when I will leave Chicago entirely to go visit my family in the central part of the state.

It bothers me a bit to have to caveat my Lenten resolution for change, but I think the heart of the decision is sound: I don't ever need to drive to my job, I rarely go anywhere that is not within walking distance or easily accessible by a nearby bus or El line. Instead of choosing, in these instances, to be lazy and convenient, to cut myself off from my surroundings by locking myself in Stella the Avenger (yes, that is my car's name), I will choose to walk, take the bus or El, and make adjustments so this is possible. It may mean staying a little closer to home for some groceries, and will for sure mean planning time in a better way so as to not be late for everything.

I think it will be good, though. I will find myself with some time in transit that I did not before, and I will be looking for a way to make that a time for connection with my spiritual life, and the life surrounding me. I look forward to encountering many new faces and experiences, and not refilling my gas tank for a month!