A Movie Scene and a Lenten Discipline?

In an otherwise perfectly forgettable movie ("2012") there is one very remarkable scene...

The tidal wave of inconceivable destructive force (it's going to put the Himalayas under water, for goodness' sake!) races to make landfall. The people who have been in the know and have been selected, by either hook or crook, to survive in order to repopulate the world are scurrying to get tucked into their hi-tech, indestructible "arks" in order to be saved. Ostensibly unaware of any of the drama going on in the world around him, a Buddhist monk meditates. As the wave approaches the monastery, the roar of oblivion catches the monk's attention. He opens his eyes to see the tower of water bearing down upon him. He closes his eyes in meditation and is swept away.

This scene has been replaying over and over in my head over the past two weeks. In the midst of all the clamor and chaos here in Wisconsin, I've been caught up in the emotion, the feelings of helplessness, and the over-wrought sense that I "should be doing something". I've lived with the gnawing sense that I could shake my fist at the tidal wave of rhetoric and position-taking, but with little effect, except to ratchet up further my own frustration.

I know where I stand on the issues raised by the Governor's "budget repair bill". I also know how I feel about the necessity of reasoned dialogue and open conversation. I know how much I desire to believe our country (and this state) are places where people of different opinions can reach mutually agreeable (if not perfect) decisions for the good of the society at large. The "common good" seems lost in a flood of "special" interests.

The adrenalin of the past two weeks has been nearly all-consuming for me. I can only imagine what it's been like for those whose lives will be affected by some of the changes in the proposed legislation. Perhaps that's what has disturbed me so much about the whole thing -- somehow in the midst of fighting for our rights or fighting for our principles or fighting for the people who elected us or fighting for a balanced budget or fighting for whatever-the-hell we're fighting for, we've been reduced to mostly fighting. Oh, we're not taking swings at each other (yet) but our verbiage continues to teeter on the brink of crossing the line into the all out "us-against-them" arguments that lead nowhere in particular except to destroy (if not physically or legislatively, at least logically) "the other".

All of which, leads me back to that scene from the movie and my discernment towards a Lenten discipline. Yesterday, I mused on a Facebook post about the possibility of taking a "fast" from all forms of news for the season. I wondered if such an attempt would lead to a more "peaceful" me. I also wondered what effect such a fast would have on my perceived relevance. Several people who commented on the post seemed to think the fast was a good idea. Another mused about responding to the news in a different fashion -- perhaps discerning how to pray in the midst of all the information we receive through the news. One of my clergy friends (humorously?) suggested that, as a group, clergy are already "irrelevant".  As I think about the fictional monk getting back to his vocation of meditation, even as he was about to be swept away, I wonder how my own vocation as a priest calls me to live in the midst of the turbulence that churns around me. Swimming has never been a strong point for me...but I'm not sure I'm ready to drown.