In the myth from Ancient Greece, Sisyphus was a cruel king who angered the gods because he was inhospitable and he cheated death. As punishment, Sisyphus was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. Just as the boulder nears the top, he watches it roll back down, knowing he must start again. In modern times, we recall Sisyphus’ fate when we describe tasks as “sisyphean,” meaning they are both arduous and pointless or impossible. Life has felt sisyphean lately. For the past several years, it feels like my family and I have been jumping from crisis to crisis. Just when things stabilize, the floor is pulled out from under us and we tumble back down to rock bottom. Again and again, we find ourselves pushing a boulder up the hill. Again and again, we wait for it to crush us.
There is good news though: the Emmanuel, the God with us, is here pushing a boulder with us, wandering the desert for forty days, hungry and alone.
The decision might have began with the birth of a child, the hormonal changes that triggered epigenetic depression. Maybe the decision began with the basement flooding, a tens-of-thousands dollar bill. Maybe it was a pandemic or an attempted coup, a global shutdown and a nation-on-edge laced with the kind of fear the world has to pretend never happened. Maybe it was that pretending that triggered the decision, the realization that no matter what everyone said, we as a species were not okay. Maybe it was the irreconcilable differences all at once – the realization that a mother or your best friends can ghost you one day just because they feel like it, the realization that there are no tethers to the people we love the most and that love is a daily choice someone can wake up one day and decide not to make. Maybe it was the dog bite that made the decision, the tearing of the skin at Christmas. Maybe it was the concussion or the dead 20-year-old whose neck he searched for a pulse. Maybe it was the tyrant. Maybe it was just all of it coming down at once.
Wherever it started, it ended laying in bed for 24 hours unable to get up and realizing something had to give. I made the call and withdrew from seminary. I couldn’t handle managing all the crises, two programs, working 75 hours per week, and shoving all the grief and anger under the rug. In the weeks since then, I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, a lot of taking my time. I’ve been praying and curling up next to my savior and not moving. I’ve been letting the projects I had slated for release this winter sit there unreleased. I’ve been taking it all less seriously, slowly letting go of perfectionism and timescales, trusting that in the surrender, something more beautiful can be formed.
In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), Jesus fasts and wanders in the wilderness for forty days after which he is tempted by the Enemy. This time in the wilderness is captured in the liturgical calendar for the forty days of lent (which also mirror Moses’ and Elijah’s fasts in the Old Testament). For forty days, the Church wanders about, many fasting and praying as Jesus did. Typically, we think of this time as a period of mourning, repenting of our sins and preparing ourselves for the death of Christ on the cross. It’s also, though, a period of preparation for God’s calling for our lives. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness were a sabbath to him before beginning his own ministry. In all three gospel accounts, Jesus begins his ministry and calls his first disciples immediately after he avoids falling prey to the Enemy’s temptation.
This year, more than mourning and repentance, I want to dedicate my Lenten season to preparation, doing the hard and necessary work of facing the wilderness, of exchanging all of my own strength for the peace and strength that comes from total dependence on and surrender to the LORD. I don’t know how long this Lenten series will be or how in depth; I’m taking my time and giving myself space. But I do know the boulder can be pushed up the mountain because I know the God who made the boulder and the God who made the mountain. And, unlike Sisyphus, I know that no matter how many times I watch that boulder roll end over end down this mountain, I’ll see it come to rest one day at the top of this hill. There is a day coming without striving and without illness. There is a day of glory. And these moments, the agonizing ones with my muscles trembling and my lungs screaming and the boulder rolling, are nothing more than temporary ash floating momentarily through the breeze, light and easy.
Dust I was and dust I’ll be. The good days are dust which means the bad ones are too. The boulder is dust and the mountain is dust and the labor is dust and the pusher is dust. So, I do not fear the wilderness because I am from it and made up of it. And my God is above it all.
Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota and sells poetry art here. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
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