I Forgot the Carrots
Everyone has a favorite dish if they like food. At least, that’s been my experience. I found one of my favorite dishes during college- I have a great love of Chicken Tika Masala. Yes, I am well aware that it is about as authentic for Indian cuisine as Olive Garden is for Italian. It tries, but the versions I have had would not be what I would find in India…especially when we consider that currently history identifies the origin of the dish as being in the UK, not India. That’s okay- cuisine is not so limited that it cannot be changed and adapted.
Recently when I’ve made it, I’ve taken a short cut or two and used a simmer sauce. Quite delicious, but not quite the recipe when I used to make it. The jar of sauce recommends adding vegetables. So the other night when I needed some supper, I swung by the grocery store to pick up some vegetables to put in it. The last time I tried this sauce, I used carrots to add to the dish. Had a few left in the fridge and they made for a tasty addition. When I started thinking about what to add this time, carrots were first on the list. I was looking forward to carrots. They were, in fact, the only vegetable I was planning to pick up from the store because I already had onions on hand.
But then I got to the actual grocery store and started to walk around. I remembered I had some spinach in the fridge to use up and knew it would go in the dish well. Then I saw the cherry tomatoes which would add to the tomato base of the sauce and eventually I had a whole bunch of vegetables that I would want to oven roast before I added them into the dish, some discounted chicken, and no carrots. However, I did not remember that I wanted carrots until later. Way later. Until after I’d gotten home, baked cookies for a friend’s birthday, washed and chopped and oven roasted all the other vegetables, cooked the chicken, and made the dish. I had forgotten the part I was perhaps most excited about adding to the dish!
Now, this has been a lot about cooking dinner one evening. It’s mundane, ordinary, and a part of everyday life. People eat dinner many days and someone has to decide what to cook. I changed my recipe and it threw things off. It was still delicious, just different. I made a change to how I cooked the dish and I might not go back to the old way, even if I make my sauce myself again in the future rather than using a jarred version.
When it comes to making a change because we feel called by God, should it not be just as ordinary? If we are living in sin, any sin, we often know that we need to do something different. If our lives are full of busyness without joy or rest, we need to do something different. However, change is hard. When we’ve settled into a pattern of living, it is incredibly difficult to remove ourselves from that comfortable rut even if it is a pattern that includes unhealthy choices, sin, or pain. That’s one of the reasons I like Lent as much as I do. Lent is a call for a change. To do something different. To break away from the pressures of the world, to seek God, to start fresh. To, as the Scripture says, “be still and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10 NRSVUE).
And before I pretend like that’s easy, there is mental fatigue that goes into examining our lives and seeking God in them. If we are in survival mode because we are so busy, there is no time or space for anything else. My own personal experience with being overworked and not having enough time to live was brief- some people stay busy for years before something changes. The hope is always that it is a change for the better, but sometimes things get worse instead. That sort of stress damages us in a way that is usually non-recoverable. I sit in a privileged position with only one person’s life to manage. Parents, people with aging parents who need assistance, people who are caretakers of others have stresses that you cannot simply walk away from. If I only preach take a break when there is no break to take, that does not show an understanding of the situation.
As a child I never thought about how much work went into something as simple as making a plan for dinner. Mom just took care of that. Think for a moment about your own life. When asking the question what’s for dinner, who gets asked that? Is it you? Or is that burden all on someone else? Mental fatigue is real. It wears you out and eventually starts to grate on you. The mental fatigue that overwhelms people does not go away if they get a day of rest here or there. There is no quick fix for making the sort of changes that lessen that burden. For many, Lent is just another season at church with no real change because… well there’s lots of reasons why. The bigger question as a church community then becomes how do we help each other through the busy seasons? What can we do to make life more like kingdom life for everyone?
When I forgot the carrots, it was no big deal. I was cooking for myself and I planned the dinner. Not the end of the world. But sometimes when we forget something it is important or does have an impact on others. We can get focused on all the wrong things and miss something vital. This year for Lent I hope you’re able to rest and restore your soul in God’s grace and peace. That you find Christ’s mercy and redemption when you examine your life. That you are led by the Holy Spirit to joy and hope. And perhaps, most importantly, I pray that you have the time, energy, and wherewithal to do so.
