Chocolate for Lent by Hilary Brand
Week Five
Growing Up -- The Process of Change
To Start Your Reflection
For a few minutes, take an imaginary journey with me and with some of the characters of Chocolat.
Picture Paul de Reynaud as a chubby seven-year-old in dress shirt and tie, with hair slicked down, ready for mass. “One day you will be Comte de Reynaud,” his mother tells him, “and upon you the moral welfare of this village will rest.” Picture him passing by the statue of his ancestor in the square every day and seeing that steely gaze of responsibility falling, it seems, on him alone.
Picture Josephine, a teenager giggling as the boys pass by, full of dreams for the future. Watch as it gradually dawns on her that her father is a collaborator with the hated Nazis. See her shame as the Germans withdraw from
Picture Caroline, a gawky eleven-year-old in the high school gym. “Sorry,” says her new friend, “my mom says I can’t come over after school.” Caroline knows why. She knows what they say about her mother—Armande Voisin, the sleaze. She swears, reads dirty books, drinks with the men, and does no housework. Worst of all, she says exactly what she thinks. “When I am older,” vows Caroline, “I’ll never put my children through this.”
Picture nine-year-old Vianne on yet another rattling bus, journeying to yet another unknown town. “It’s fun,” her mother tells her. “We’re not like those other people. We are wanderers. This is our life.” See Vianne as she presses her nose to the glass and conjures up that ever-dimmer memory of the man who seemed so kind and gentle: her father, one of those “other” people. “Yes, maman,” says Vianne. “It’s going to be fun.”
When we are small children, our parents seem like God to us. As we grow, we discover they are sometimes wrong. By the time we are teenagers, we usually think they are wrong about everything! But still, they leave with us an immense heritage of ideas, attitudes, and emotions—things so deeply ingrained that we never question them. Indeed, we probably don’t even know they are there, until one day something or someone comes along to challenge them.
There are two ways of dealing with this subconscious legacy. One is to try and dig it all up—bring it all to the surface and examine every bit of it. The other is to keep it all deeply buried—to push it down, to cover it over, and to dismiss it the moment it threatens to pierce the surface.
The first way—counseling or therapy—is helpful but costly, in time and effort and probably in money. There may be times when it becomes a desperate necessity in our lives And yet, even as you reap dividends in terms of increased self-knowledge, you run the risk of being exposed to things you are not yet equipped to deal with (which is the reason that professional help is so important).
The second way—repression—is less than helpful and still likely to be costly, certainly in terms of mental well-being and quite possibly in terms of physical health. Its “benefit” is that on the surface, things keep running smoothly; indeed, there are times when life is just too demanding for prolonged introspection. But it can be rather like tiptoeing around a minefield. If you don’t know what is buried where, then you never know when something is likely to explode.
Thankfully, as I have gone on in my faith life, I have discovered that these two are not the only alternatives for coping with what life has dealt us. If you have entrusted your life into God’s hands, then I believe God will often allow your hidden attitudes and emotions to surface one by one at just the right time, at a time when you are ready to deal with them.
Of course, it will never feel like the right time. It will never feel comfortable and cozy when the deepest things about us are challenged. That’s why trusting God is so important at these times, making it possible to welcome those challenging intruders as friends rather than resenting them as enemies, because you are no longer facing them alone. If you are committed to growth, if you are learning to trust God as a loving parent who wants only good things for his children, then it becomes possible to ride those feelings, to “hang in there,” and to trust that God is a specialist in bringing strength out of weakness and joy out of pain.
Pause for Reflection
Read John 3:1-8; Matthew 18:1-3.
These readings can provoke many thoughts and be interpreted in many ways, but one thing Jesus seems to be saying is that it is possible to begin again. No, we cannot enter again into our mother’s womb. We may not be able to undo our parenting and our background or culture, but we can release its harmful hold on us. We can become new people. We can see the world through childlike eyes again. It is not only possible, Jesus implies, but necessary. To be fully the people God wants us to be, we have to take off our adult straitjacket and become willing to learn.
Pause for Thought
Ask God whether there is anything from your past that is quite near the surface right now and ready to be dealt with. Perhaps you will need to look at your present tensions, reactions and emotions and ask yourself if they have their roots in something in your past. If something comes to mind, look at it for awhile, but then commit it into God’s hands. Ask God to help you deal with any shame or blame, and to show you also what strengths and blessings your past has given you.