My Lenten Journey: Sirens

Everyday since last year, each time I drove somewhere I would experience a siren.  A siren... an ambulance, firetruck, police car, EMTs. Sirens.  Sometimes a few times a day. Every day. Now at first I thought, OK I live in a city of course there will be sirens all the time. No big deal.  No big whoop.

I would pray each time a siren passed me by... dear God take care of the rescued and take care of the folks doing the rescuing, amen. After awhile I began to get annoyed, the sirens seemed endless, it just felt so frequent... like all the time!. I took it all so personal without understanding or knowing why.

I happened upon a passage somewhere in a book or maybe a magazine (escapes my memory) the author said she began to experience sirens as a metaphor for her life.  God was speaking. That once she started paying attention and tending to her life. her life changed for the better.

And so I started to notice... the sirens were alerting me to what was happening in my life.  My life was trying to get my attention.  God was speaking.  The sirens were clues.

 I began to understand that it wasn't prayers for others I needed, but prayers for myself. I needed deeply selfish prayers... asking God to direct me. And if that wasn't enough.  I recently came across a piece posted on Facebook about the 22 Habits of Unhappy People.  It was profoundly sobering and accurate and sad. And so dead on for me. Not all 22 habits but enough of them to sit me down in prayer.

So all of this together in my life forces me to confront what I am seeing and experiencing, that I am not dealing with my unhappiness, that I can and must make some big changes and that I must be kinder and gentler to myself. The beginning of the Lenten Season got me refocused and recommitted to examining and changing things in my life. Here I am making sweeping changes yet again. The man I thought I'd build a family with left at my insistence, I bought a new car---it's been 7 years since I had a new car (used---new to me), I am reconnecting with community in a public way. I am looking at how to best grow and nurture my ministry. And of course the issues of weight and a real commitment to fitness.

Last week I noticed for the first time in a long time, I did not experience any sirens and the one siren I did encounter was driving away from me.  Thank you God, I feel as though I am turning a corner. Oh there is so much to do and achieve and accomplish and do. But the lessening of the sirens is a sign that I am moving in the right direction. I gotta deal with the sadness that I have been living with for all of my life. I have managed the sadness like a chronic disease... now it is time to cure it.  Or at best manage it so that there are next to no traces of it left in my blood stream.

This Season of Lent is truly one of renewal and wonderment and preparation. I am living my resurrection story with each breath I greet the new day with. I am the holy one and the holy one dwells within. A new plan of action emerges. I am ready

I am ready. Even if I am not... I am.  My life has been preparing the way thus far, even in my resistance and disbelief. The sirens weren't warnings... they are clues and guideposts to pay attention.  To notice where God was directing. My pain and sadness is not with the world. It has always been internal... with me.