Lenten Letters Update: Pride and misTrust

Tomorrow marks three weeks of Lent, which is almost half-way to Easter and Lent’s completion.  This year I’ve given up posting on Facebook, and instead, I’m writing letters to my friends.  This Lenten practice is much easier than last year’s practice because I’m not necessarily adding a daily observance (like fasting and daily yoga).  The only thing I’m “doing” every day is NOT checking Facebook, which has been much easier than I thought it would be, and I don’t miss it…much.  While benefits and encouragements are present in social media, the chaff seriously outweighs the wheat in this regard.

The real challenge of this year’s Lenten practice comes in finding the “right” things to talk about.  What do you put in a letter to people you hardly know or people you’ve only known superficially?  In Facebook communication, it’s common to post whatever blurbs come to mind or whatever links I’ve  come across online and “liked.”  My personal Facebook News Feed usually contains conspiracy theories and calls for political accountability, articles about social justice, science news, progressive Christianity updates, Buddhism quotes, local news updates, articles about yoga and running, and my friends’ personal minutia (from meal photos and family activities to work rants and exercise updates).  When I “like” these things or post things like this, I essentially put content “out there” for people to respond to…or not.  It’s quite the setup for the introvert who still wishes to share without having to actually interact with people in real life.  But it’s all rooted in superficiality, despite how profound or meaningful some of it may be.

But specifically writing to people and assuming they’re interested in the minutia of my life is another thing entirely.  My first attempt at a letter to Wendy (the project’s muse) was over 10 handwritten pages, chock-full of spiritual history.  And I scrapped it all because after I read it, I knew this complete stranger would likely not care to know quite that much about me.  Regardless of that assumption’s veracity, I knew that I wouldn’t care for her to know that much about me.  Then I sat on it for a week, trying to find something meaningful to say, something worthy of being written down and made tangible with a fountain pen and yellow, lined paper.

All I could muster up (for both letters) was an update about some of my recent activities (which is really to say an update on running/upcoming races).  But running is so not the entirety of my life.  Why did I write them both about that?  Why didn’t I include writing about the things I’m reading, or about my work?  Where is the Venn Diagram of topics that are both sincere and acceptable for polite discourse, whether public (on Facebook) or private in a personal letter?

Looking back on those first two letters, they are more reflective of selfishness and vanity than they are of a sincere attempt at communication.  They should have been scrapped too, but I decided that whatever I put down in the last versions was going to be sent, with no edits or revisions; and now my heart is heavy with regret for what I included and for what I didn’t mention.  In all the foot-in-mouth posts I’ve put on Facebook (of which there are way too many), I can assure you I never felt as embarrassed as I have since sealing and sending those letters.

My husband tells me I’m an onion, with lots of layers.  (Thank you, Shrek, for inspiring my husband to analyze my personality in this way.)  He tells me that I am “community oriented” in the sense of coming to someone’s aid or doing something  for someone else, but that when I am in need, I rarely, if ever, reach out and ask for help from that same community.  (He’s right.  I rarely even ask for his help, much less anyone else’s.  It’s the sin of pride, and I’m very guilty of it.)

Maybe that’s playing a role in this attempt at fostering deeper communication.  Here I am thinking writing letters is the perfect type of interaction for me—the writer; but when it came to choosing superficiality or sincerity, I chose superficiality.  More than anything I’m sure this is rooted in fear…fear of sharing my life in all its raw honesty; fear of letting people see me as broken or damaged or vulnerable because I don’t have a happy or “normal” history.  I assume people want a happy story, one that inspires (and that is what I try to do on this blog).  But in making and living according to that assumption, what I’m really doing is failing to trust them…to trust that they will accept me as I am.  And as sorry as I am for that, I’ve lived through enough awkward moments of absolute sincerity and honesty to know that my mistrust is well placed.

I have six more letters to write, and I have an established history with only half of them.  This week I’ll spend time on the three people I’ve known well.  Though we have fallen out of communication, it’s always been easy for us to pick up without seeming to have missed a beat.  I’m hoping that makes it easier to write them and that my letters will be more sincere.  If I even get responses from the first two letters, I promise I’ll try harder to drop my prideful veil in reply more than I did in the initial attempts. In the meantime, please accept this song that both explains and apologizes better than I can on my own.