When Baxter doesn’t get what he wants, he gives me the cold shoulder. He usually turns and sits with his back to me. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks straight ahead in the opposite direction from where I am and pretends I’m not there. If I call his name, he ignores it. If I ask him a question, he makes no response. He may eventually leave the room for one of his comfortable spots, or he may just continue to sit with his back to me, denying me a place in his world. Baxter shuts me out of his world because I didn’t make it the way he wanted it to be-full of endless food.
We can sometimes do that to God. We turn away when we get angry at Him for what happened to us. We pout because everyone else seems to have all the luck, and we think we are left with the bum deal. We get all the toil, struggle and heartache. Our lives are full of drudgery and lack excitement. We think we know what we need to be happy, but we are denied it. So, we make ourselves out to be the scape goat for others’ irresponsibility and sin, and we play the victim of life, the butt of God’s mean-spirited joke, and we don’t like it. All we know to do is to give Him the cold shoulder. We stop praying, stop participating in the Sunday Eucharist, stop trying to live by the principles and convictions we were taught. We give up on God, on each other and on ourselves.
Lent is a time to turn around. The call to repentance that marks this season bids us to face up to God, each other and ourselves with our grievances and hurts. Like the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son, the Father comes out to us and invites us home to celebrate. He allows us to get our burdens off our chests in an honest confession of the pain we have felt. He tells us how much we matter to Him and how He grieves when we are distant. Through the exercises of this season, God looks at us with the warmth of His love and tries to melt the resentments we hold that prevent us from seeing Him at work in our lives. Lent is meant to be the annual homecoming for us in faith, and our ticket to this reunion is the prayer, fasting and almsgiving we undertake, the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance we celebrate, and the efforts we make to think, say and do things differently.
Eventually, Baxter gives in and comes around again with a friendly purr and gentle rub. If a cat can find his way to a change of heart, surely we can. Don’t miss the opportunity to turn things around this Lent by using the tools the church offers us to guide our repentance. A cold shoulder only breeds more hurt and pain, but a warm embrace of genuine love brings happiness to those who share it. Let’s have a happy Lent.
