ReLent: No More Monkey Business

It is interesting the epiphanies you will encounter when taking on a challenge in life. For me I recently decided that I needed to give up something for Lent. Call it an act of recognition for all that I have been blessed with in life, a form of giving back through deprivation.

For years I tried to acknowledge Lent and give something up but more or less failed like a captured monkey.

Now, my reference may be attached to a fable or fact – so don’t quote me on this – but it has been relayed to me that in the wild, people will use a very simple shaft about the length of a monkey’s arm to catch monkies. Now the size of the shaft will vary depending on the type and size of the monkey one hopes to catch.

To entice the monkey, you dangle a shiny object from one end of the shaft. Now, in order to get at the object, the monkey must stick their arm through the shaft and grab ahold of the object at the other end. In doing so, this catches them in their own level (or lack) of intelligence. By creating a fist, they can’t retrieve the object from the end of the shaft.

As stubborn creatures often do, they refuse to let go of the object at hand.

Similarly, I never really was humbled enough to admit that there realistically was something to give up as a sign of sacrifice leading up to Easter and the recognition of the world’s most ultimate sacrifice on a cross.

Ironically, in this deep-seated recession, I was brought to my knees. Much had been taken away from me. I found myself without a job, sick for 3 months, I got hit by a car without any sort of insurance and without anything more to stubbornly cling to. Or so I thought.

I looked down at my nails one evening and realized that the one thing that I have never in my life given up, was my incessant need to bite my finger nails. I had never tried to make a concerted effort to stop because I had just succumbed to a weak excuse of justifying that it was just a part of who I was as a person.

The reason I started biting in the first place was because my dad did it. And from day one, I have always looked up to my dad in the highest esteem possible. As a child he would see my chewing and swat at my hand. Under his breath he would mutter how disgusting it was to bite nails. I thought, well you do it???

Although, like any stereotype, nail biters get a classification of their own. Hadn’t realized it until I stopped back around Ash Wednesday. They do. I always joked that my nail biting instinct was a natural form of nail clippers.

As much as I hold true to that archaic view in the event that if you’re caught in the middle of the jungle with nothing but your teeth, I also think that my logic was a bit backwards for many years.

And so as I embark on this new revelation and habit kicking blog series, (trust me, I'm not done,) I find myself strangely energized and ready to see this be a permanent sacrifice rather than a 40 day purge. No more monkey business!