RUNNING ON EMPTY

One mile in, I heard from my left earbud: “battery low.” Add to the mental list: charge earbuds! A little while later, my watch sent one long buzz to my wrist. “That was a quick mile,” I thought, before realizing my watch was telling me it had 5% battery left. Damn- a run doesn’t count unless you can count it on Strava, am I right? Just then, it was my right ear’s turn to signal “battery low.” I pulled out my phone to calculate the mileage home. On the top right, my battery moved from yellow to red.

I like to think of myself as attuned to subtle signs, good at searching for meaning in the mundane. I’m not sure why God, or the technology gods, thought I needed to be hit by a billboard today. Message received—my batteries are low. Draining. Tired. Weary. It’s been a long Lent.

Our Lent started early this year - very early. Since last October, my household has experienced big, emotional things that require attention and care and gentleness and deep trust in God: A sudden and heart-breaking job loss. Unspeakable drama at the other workplace. Rejections. Flu A. Norovirus. Sleep regressions. Potty training. Preschool interviews (how is this a thing??). The birth of a child – a beautiful, glorious event, but one that is not necessarily battery-filling, and five weeks prior to said job loss.

I’ve always aspired to be more disciplined. The word discipline comes from “discipula”- student.  It connotes learning, instruction, and structure. I watch my spouse do his morning stretches, his morning prayers, his compline, his quiet times, and aspire to be like that. Or, aspire to want to be like that. It’s never worked for me.

People have always given me what feels like a “free pass” on my lack of spiritual discipline, despite my longing for one. In a church interview over a decade ago, I was told I did in fact have a prayer practice. I was told I prayed while I was swimming, or walking, or chopping vegetables, or journaling. The grace the interviewer extended me didn’t quite sit right—perhaps she was more describing back to me my prayer than a prayer practice—and still doesn’t sit right. Ten years later, I can tell you where we were, who said this, what she was wearing, and how my stomach clenched.

I sought a spiritual director to help me build a regular prayer life, and she gave me the lines that I usually give to everyone else—"there is always grace, there is no need for shame about what your prayer looks like. Perhaps your life can’t hold something regular or structured right now. Maybe it’s not your turn to have regular discipline in prayer.” But I didn’t need a cheerleader, I needed a coach. I volunteered my longing for spiritual discipline to a room full of peers at a conference. I shared that what I longed for was quiet, a space in my head, heart, and house where I could be present and unhurried in connection with the God of the universe. Someone responded from their seat—"ah, you can do that when the kids are grown. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

To be clear, I never beat myself up about it. My soul, instead, longed for it.

Christian unemployment really puts theology to the test. Will I believe in the trust and resurrection that I say I do, when rubber hits the road? Can I practice grace and healing? Does God see my bank account like I do?

At the beginning of my unexpected unemployment, I spent hours trying to choose a discipline. This was my opportunity: a blank slate (and calendar), and an invitation to lean hard into my faith. Maybe I should read the theological books I was supposed to in grad school. Maybe I should try a 30 day reflection guide. Maybe I should use the prayer book. Maybe I should start tai chi or pilates and get a two for the price of one deal, getting “snatched” in 30 days like the Instagram ads promise. Maybe, I should, maybe I should…

A friend told me about a prayer podcast. It was daily, Anglican, free, and short. I started listening. My job became a professional picker-up-after-people, and after I dropped the kids off at school, I’d come home and listen. I listened while doing the dishes, driving on an errand, on the start of my runs. I tried to listen in the first half of my day, but I didn’t stop my day to do so. I listened. The music was good. Sometimes I searched for the music aferward and listened to it the rest of the day. The podcast and Spotify rabbit hole led me to a rendition of the Lord’s Prayer which I listened to on repeat for literally hours while I did 9 loads of laundry one day. The scripture bounced around (thanks lectionary committee), but I was familiar enough to figure out context. I answered the reflection questions out loud, and honestly.

“What do you think Jesus meant when he said this?” the calm British voice asked.

“Who the f--- knows?” I’d say, while peeling wallpaper.

To stay focused, I’d try to take one thing with me after the podcast ended each day. It might be, “your grace is sufficient—but I would also appreciate food and a house.” Or “it’s easier to love my neighbor if I don’t actually interact with them.”  I started writing them down in my journal—either daily, or a week of catch-up at a time—but that discipline faded as quickly as most have in my life. It would probably be interesting to track the evolution of those one liners (doesn’t count unless you can count it, right?!) but maybe that will be my next-level discipline.  

I don’t know how people do this stuff—the Job-like, Alexander’s-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day, Lentiest Lent kind of stuff—without God. If I believed in what I see, that that’s all there is, I’d run for the hills and bunker down. I’d declare doomsday and eat Spam and hoard toilet paper and succumb to the darkest night of the soulless soul. Especially when things are rough, when I feel like I’m being hit while I’m down, I need to believe that there is something more, and that whatever something more points to relationship and hope and new life. For me, that’s God.

I don’t believe that my parent God is giving me challenges so I can learn a lesson—what kind of parent would give their child a snake when they ask for fish? I don’t believe God won’t give me more than I can handle, because wow, I can’t handle this.  And I need a God that lets me be me, in all of my anger and complaining and woe-is-me. (For why would my creator ask for censorship when they already know my inmost being?)

I  know that looking for God and listening for God always brings me a hope I didn’t know existed. Amidst sleep regressions and teething and car repair bills, I discover hope, dreams, joy, perspective. That’s what I find when I choose to listen to a tiny prayer podcast instead of doomscroll the news. That’s what I remember when I try to remember that God is here, that God loves me and suffers alongside me.

It’s been three months.  I’m still listening. I still don’t do the 4am-special-chair-journal-BCP “time with the Lord” the Instagram influencers I follow do. But I spend about 12 minutes every day turning off NPR, listening to scripture, and thinking about God, and reflecting on how God is at work in my life.

My batteries may be drained. But I am doing everything I can to fill them up. Including finding a prayer practice that feeds my soul, in a way my life can hold. Maybe on this battery-low run, the tech gods are telling me something I know theoretically, but need reminded of often—even on a run with no music, no Strava, and no optimized route, God’s grace is sufficient.