Lent as a Marathon: Transformative Journey with Challenges, Temptations, and Ecstatically Transcendental Peak Experience
Lent is a 40-day period to cleanse our souls to prepare
ourselves to become worthy to journey with Jesus through his Passion, Death,
and the Resurrection. Many Catholics
express Lent as a journey. And, to me, a
marathon is the most suitable metaphor to describe Lent.
A marathon is a long-distance challenging journey that
demands a high level of disciplines, as there are many temptations to quit or
to cheat. Likewise, our Lenten journey has a significant amount of duration,
with psychospiritual, as well as psychophysiological challenges, in practicing
the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, consistently. There are many temptations to defile on our
Lenten journey, even though it is our intense purification period.
When I was involved in the Chicago Area Runners Association
marathon training, I had the privilege to run and engage in some theological
discussion with Bishop Tom Paprocki, then Chicago auxiliary bishop, now the
bishop of Springfield, Illinois. As Bishop Paprocki has been an avid
marathoner, he was leading a group of marathon trainees on the Chicago’s
lakefront running path. By sharing some
miles with Bishop Paprocki, our theological conversations often took a marathon
metaphor. And, when we discussed about Lent, as a journey, we immediately
connected Lenten journey to a marathon.
This conversation with Bishop Paprocki has inspired me to
explore the transformative nature of Lent with a metaphor of a transformative
marathon experience, drawing upon “transcendence”, “peak experience”, and
“flow”, in light of the Gospel readings
of the first two Sundays of Lent of the Year A, Matthew 4:1-11, and Matthew
17:1-9.
In comparing Lent to a marathon, what the start line is to a
marathon corresponds to what Ash Wednesday is to Lent. And, what the finish
line to a marathon parallels what Easter is to Lent.
The transformation of runners does not just happened in
crossing the finish lines. The
transformation is a gradual process that takes place during a 42-km challenging marathon journey. A
marathon transformation experience is like being refined through pain and
suffering that runners endure, while fighting temptations for an easier way:
dropping out or cheating. In fact, as many marathoners can tell, transformation
is actually an extensive process that spans over the months of trainings leading
to marathon races they prepare for. And, given the demanding nature and
duration of a marathon training, trainees must overcome many temptations over
these months in preparation for a challenging marathon race.
Necessity of the Sound Discipline, Modeled After Jesus' for a Lenten Marathon
Being a Christian – being true followers of Christ - is just
like being a committed runners, who endures months of demanding training in
order to complete a challenging marathon. As marathoners’ transformation
process spans from training into marathon, a personal transformation process of
Christians precedes Lent and continues on beyond Easter. This truth can be also understood by thinking
and reflecting how certain Gospel readings before Lent are related to Lenten
Gospel readings.
For example, Jesus’ teaching on dealing with anger in the 7th
Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew 5:38-48) and Jesus’ advice on handling anxieties
in the 8th Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew 6:24-34) are relevant to
appreciate Lenten meaning of overcoming temptations with the Gospel reading for
the First Sunday of Lent (Matthew 4:1-11). It is because anger and anxieties
often tempt us into defilement. And, as dealing with anger and anxiety, as
Jesus teaches, demands disciplines, temptations cannot be overcome without
disciplines. When we become angry as someone instigates, we are tempted to
react with flight-or-fight amygdala response. We become more vulnerable to
temptations when we are anxious due to a lack of trust.
Another example is found in the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading
(Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18) in relevance to the First Sunday of Lent Gospel reading
(Matthew 4:1-11). In the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading, Jesus is criticizing
hypocrisy in almsgiving. And, this hypocrisy is a result of a failure to
overcome our narcissistic temptation, a temptation to use almsgiving to make us
look good or superior. In fact, Jesus experiences this kind of temptation in
the First Lenten Sunday Gospel reading, as Devil tempted to use his divine
power for his own purpose and to show off himself with his divine power.
Secure Attachment with God at the Core of Our Being - the Source of the Discipline and Resilience
Jesus teaches us that our best weapon to fight temptations
is psychospiritual disciplines. The psychospiritual disciplines are our
stabilizers. The disciplines also help us deal with anxieties.
So, what is the secret of Jesus’ strengths to fight
temptation victoriously, as described in Matthew 4:1-11? What is the source of
his psychospiritual disciplines to assure his strengths to overcome
temptations?
In John 10, Jesus’ discourse on Good Shepherd drew the ire
of people who were hostile to him. And, they tempted Jesus to answer if he
thinks he is a messiah. Of course Jesus did not get into their trap by
answering straightforward. This response of Jesus in John 10:22-39 really
evokes how Jesus fended off temptations in Matthew 4:1-11.
The Gospel narrative from John 10:22-39 also indicates where
Jesus finds the strengths to discipline himself in dealing with hostile
people’s instigative questions that tempt him to answer straight, also avoiding
the trap they set. Because of this strength, Jesus keeps himself calm, though
the instigators want him to get carried away by his emotions and fall into
their trap.
In John 10:29-30, Jesus tells his special psychological
attachment with the Father, stating, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no
one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father
are one.” In this, “them” refers to
the sheep that he is sent to take care of as their Good Shepherd, even to the
point of laying his own life for them. And, “sheep” is a metaphor of us, the
sinners.
What is important to keep in mind here is
Jesus’ humility, by attributing his power to serve as the Good Shepherd to the
Father. But, those who are hostile to him and try to trap him think that Jesus
identifies himself as the Good Shepherd out of “arrogance” and blasphemy to
God. Their problem can be also
understood through the Buddhism teaching of Three Poisons: ignorance, anger
(hatred), and greed, as the major sources of kleshas (defilement). Out of
their ignorance about who really Jesus is, they have developed their hatred
toward Jesus and obsessively try to trap him. On the other hand, Jesus did not
react to their “poisons” by becoming angry at them. This indicates that Jesus is free from the
Three Poisons. Thus, Jesus is free from defilement. And, this aspect of Jesus’
strengths is what he teaches us in the Gospel reading of the 7th
Sunday in Ordinary Time, Matthew 5:38-48, two Sundays prior to Lent.
Jesus is able to keep himself immune from
all the agitations his enemies make. Becoming agitated and losing his calmness
would make him so vulnerable to get trapped – to be tempted to react in a way
they want him to. And, his strengths to keep himself free from a temptation
(trap) is his psychospiritual strengths rooted in his firm self-identity:
finding who he is in his consubstantial union (attachment) with the Father,
while humbly acknowledging the Father’s superiority.
This self-identity of Jesus fueled his
strengths to fight temptation, also on the night before his death, when he was
tempted to evade the prophesized death on the Cross, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup
pass from me; yet not as I will but as you will”(Matthew 26:39).
When he was tempted to let the cup of suffering pass for a
moment, Jesus was in agony. If Jesus’ 3 years of public ministry to redeem us,
the sinner, to a marathon, it was like that Jesus has run 41 kilometers out of
a 42-km marathon course. And, in this very last kilometer, there is a steep
hill to climb, followed by a deep valley, just before the finish. Having run
this far, he is exhausted. And, the thought of climbing the steep hill can be
so overwhelming to a point of tempting to “quit” or find an easier way.
Being humble himself, Jesus needed to tap into the source of
his strengths, his oneness with the Father at the core of his self-identity, to overcome.
Jesus did to draw his fresh strengths to overcome this
temptation so that he can make it through the most difficult – the most painful
part of his marathon course. Because of his special attachment with the Father,
who is almighty, Jesus was able to go through his path into Calvary, carrying
the heavy Cross, with sweat and blood, upon stating that he accepts the
Father’s will, overcoming what his ego could pull.
Unlike Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus in Matthew 26:39
appears more human. Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11 is when Jesus was in an early part
of the marathon. It was when he was baptized to begin his marathon. So, as
anyone who has run a marathon can tell, he still had a lot of strengths – even
fasting for 40 days – to fight temptations. But, after doing his Father’s will
for 3 years, overcoming many challenges along the way, including what is
written in John 10:22-39, Jesus became physically and spiritually fatigued.
Thus, he was more vulnerable to temptation than when he was in Matthew 4:1-11.
But, he pulled his strengths anew to make sure that he remains the humble and
faithful executioner of the Father’s will, which is to save us, the sinners, as
it is the most difficult part of Jesus’ marathon course. It is, indeed,
demonstrating that he is the Good Shepherd, who lays his own life for those who
he loves (John 10:11, 15, 17).
John Bowlby (1969), in his psychological theory of
attachment (“Attachment and Loss”), indicated that children who have
established secure attachment with their mothers during their formative period
are likely to grow psychologically healthy. Furthermore, Ann Masten and
Jelena Obradovic (2008) found that secure attachment with their mothers during
early childhood contributes to developing psychological resilience (“Disaster preparation recovery: Lesson from
research on resilience in human development”, Ecology and Society,
13(1):9).
These psychological concepts of Bowlby, Masten, and
Obradovic, on attachment and resilience (strengths) can be applied to understand
that Jesus’ psychospiritual resilience in responding to stress of dealing with
temptations stems from his secure attachment with the Father.
Fighting temptation is one critical factor for a successful
Lenten journey into Easter, as it is a
necessary condition for a successful completion of a marathon, as well. And, it
takes psychospiritual strengths as disciplines to fight temptations and to
resilience in dealing with stress of fighting temptations.
Overcoming temptations with strong disciplines, drawing upon
our attachment-based resilient strengths, is, indeed, a necessary condition to
assure that your Lenten journey is characterized with transcendence (James,
1985, “The Varieties of Religious Experience”), peak experience (Maslow), and
flow (Csikszentmihaly), as it is also the case with a marathon.
Peak Experience in the Flow
The Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Lent,
Matthew 17:1-9, is a peak experience. To
Jesus, this peak experience is involved with the Father, to whom he is securely
attached and from whom he gets strengths.
This really suggests that we need to have God at the core of our
self-identity as believers, as Jesus always puts the Father in the center of
his identity (John 10: 15, 17, 18, 29, 30) in order to stay strong in fighting
temptations – whatever defiles us and whatever derails us from the our course –
and to remain resilient in dealing with stress from fighting temptations.
In light of the psychological concepts on attachment and
resilience (Bowlby, Masten, and Obradovic), attachment with God not only gives
the strengths, disciplines, and resilience in dealing with temptations but also
contributes to a peak experience. Also,
if your attachment with God is secure at the core of your self-identity, you
make a smooth flow on your journey as the Father is the sender of the Holy
Spirit (John 14:26). But, if the core of
your identity is not the secure attachment with God, chances are, there is the
enlarged ego of yours. And, it may
become a blockage to the flow of the Holy Spirit.
Again, anyone who has run a marathon can tell how ego can
disrupt smooth flow of “chi” when running. Ego makes your pride out of
proportion – to a point of becoming narcissistic. And, it makes you more
reactive to other runners around you. If
you have found yourself becoming irritated when someone passed you and get
yourself hurt as a result of reacting to your agitation, running in a way you
should not. If such an experience, you have already lost the flow. Thus, you
cannot run in an optimal way.
If you lose the flow, because of ego, because you did not
place God at the core of your identity, it would be difficult for you to have a
peak experience, which makes a significant impact on your transformation. With keeping God at the core of your
identity, in your union with God through Christ at the center of who you are, you can be more mindful, thus, more capable
of going with the flow and enjoy an optimal experience.
Not to mention, having ego at the center of who you are
makes you more prone to succumb into temptations. Thus, ego-centric identity is a double-edge
sword not only to make your journey more vulnerable to temptations but also to
destroy your flow, making it impossible for your journey to have a peak
experience and to be transformative.
For your successful Lenten marathon, to keep your forward
move on the journey flowing, it must be led by the Holy Spirit. And, the Holy
Spirit comes from God the Father in Trinity. For our being to be a good conduit
– making our being more conductive to the Holy Spirit’s flow, then, we must
reduce our ego by placing God at the core of our self-identity through our
secure attachment with God.
With this core identity, we can fight temptations, that can
derail us from the Lenten marathon’s right path, as Jesus fought his
temptations in Matthew 4:1-11 (First Sunday of Lent) and we can keep the flow
on our Lenten journey, enabling us to have a peak experience, like the
Transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-11 (Second Sunday of Lent), to be transpired to
be transformed.
Jesus’ Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-11) follows Jesus’
first prediction of his own death. Thus, the Transfiguration can be understood
is projected to the Resurrection (Easter), which follows the death of Christ
(Good Friday).
Many marathoners find a transfiguration-like peak experience
in the last one kilometer toward the finish line. Most of successful
marathoners use “negative-split technique”. In this long-distance endurance
running technique, your average pace for the latter half of the marathon is
faster than that of the other half. At first, it does not seem to make sense
because you have more energy for the first half of the marathon, compared to
the last half for an obvious reason.
In fact, many marathoners become increasingly slower as the
mileage increases. After the 30th km mark, it is evident that many runners are running
with sores and pains, which slow down. Muscles aches, knee pains, blisters,
muscle cramps, and gastro -intestinal problems are not uncommon. Some are limping, while others stop to
stretch. And they are also facing greater odds of temptations to quit or to
cheat as pains and sores increase.
At the same time, there are a good number of runners
maintain their steady paces even the mileage increases. Some even become
faster. They keep passing those who are
becoming slower with the increasing mileage. And these are the runners who
practice the negative-split technique.
These runners, practicing the negative-split technique,
never run with their optimal paces in the early part of the marathon. They start
with slower paces than their maximum paces and run in a way to gradually build
up their paces as the mileage advances.
In fact, it takes some discipline to start rather slow, not
giving into the urge to spring off, and gradually increase your speed. The initial excitement or nervousness or both
can make you run in ways you should not, if you do not have sufficient
disciplines to manage such emotions.
In
fact, Jesus’ teachings on managing our anger in Matthew 5:38-48 (7th
Sunday) and managing anxieties in Matthew 6:24-34 (8th Sunday) are
applied here, preventing your excitement and nervous emotional energies from
hijacking your spiritual and rational control to run in your optimal way with
the flow.
In Matthew 5:38-48, Jesus teaches to not to react with
someone’s instigations and attacks against you by disciplining your angry
emotional response. For this, Jesus says to love the one who attacks you. But,
it is not for the one who attacks you. Instead, it is for yourself, in
particular, for your own psychospiritual resilience that cannot be manipulated
by the attacker.
This is the same kind of the psychospiritual resilice,
enabling Jesus to exercise his disciplines during his torture and suffering to
death (Luke 22:47-23:46). Jesus did not strike back when he was beaten. He kept
rising when the striker’s blows put him down. This means that the strengths of
Jesus did not give his attackers their way. And, even attackers finally killed
him, Jesus rises from the dead to show that they cannot win.
This Jesus’ resilience to fuel the discipline is addressed
by him for us in Matthew 5:38-48. And, this Gospel reading is placed two
Sundays before Lent, help us prepare for the Lenten journey, by building up our
psychospiritual disciplines necessary not only to merely endure our Lenten
marathon but to make the journey an optimal, Transfiguration-like peak
experience, with the flow, so that we
can transcend our sins and their consequences to be transformed.
In Matthew 6:24-34, Jesus further teaches that the same type
of psychospiritual disciplines taught in Matthew 5:38-48, also help us manage
anxieties, in addition to angers. The
source of the resilience to fuel the disciplines is our trust in God. It means
that we have God at the core of our self-identity, rather than ego. Having ego
at the center of our identity means we are insecure, thus, prone to give into
temptations, as easily disturbed by emotions stirred by external factors. But,
maintaining God-centered self-identity keeps us stable, less reactive to
temptations and more resilient to stress in fighting temptations, as
demonstrated by Jesus himself, finds his resilient strength in his secure
attachment with the Father.
In fact, in order to
assure the flow for our Lenten journey and our Lenten marathon to be truly
transcendental and transformative, with a Transfiguration-like peak experience,
we must exercise the discipline to fight temptations, as Jesus demonstrated in
Matthew 4:1-11 (First Sunday of Lent). And, Jesus’ teachings on managing our temptation-prone
emotions (anger and anxiety) in the two Sundays Gospel readings, Matthew
5:38-48 (7th Sunday in Ordinary Time) and Matthew 6:24-34 (8th
Sunday in Ordinary Time) in preparation for Lent , help us build the necessary
Jesus-like disciplines. In this regard, the two Gospel readings leading to Lent
As the Gospel story of the Transfiguration tells, our peak
experience should not keep us in comfort zone but to invigorate us to move
beyond our own limit for further growth.
This is another character of our Lenten journey, as its transformative
nature is not just about conversion but also continual growth toward the
fullness. This is like what Abraham Maslow (1969, “The farther reaches of human nature”, J. of Transpersonal
Psychology,1(1), 1–9) described in his concept of transcendental
self-actualization or what Carl Jung (1916, CW 6) called an individuation
process. If we do not have a
Transfiguration-like peak experience through the flow, then, we could
experience a psychospiritual developmental arrest – being stuck in our own
comfort zone or remaining in sinful life style.
Peter's Temptation with a Peak Experience - Dark Side of a Peak Experience, Necessity of the Discipline
Peter was tempted to remain in the comfort zone of his own
peak experience by proposing to set up tents on the mountain top to Jesus. In the eyes of Buddhism, this behavior of
Peter is a manifestation of “attachment”, which is not to be confused with
“attachment” in psychology. Peter’s
“attachment” to a peak experience with Transfiguration.
Besides Buddhist’s teaching on not to become attached to
even a peak experience, there is a good nerurophysicological reason for Jesus
to “shepherd” Peter and other disciples to move out of the Mt. Tabor Transfiguration
peak experience. Privette and Bundrick
(1997, “Psychological process of peak,
average, and falling performance in sport”, Int’l J of Sport Psychology,
28(4), 323-334) indicate that a peak experience can be understood as a form of
ecstasy, given psychophysiological state of “runners’ high”. McDaniel (2004, “Endocannabinoids and exercise”, Br. J Sports Medicine, 38, 536-541),
warns a possibility of adversarial psychophysiological effect of poorly managed
peak experience because of the close interaction of endocannabinoids and
dopamine. Even a peak experience
attained not through an intense prolonged physical activities, such as a
marathon, as long as there is flow, an ecstatic peak experience is possible (Csikszentmihaly,
1990). Thus, even a peak experience is euphorically and ecstatically
transformative, it becomes a problem if
we allow ourselves to become “attached to” or fixated to or addicted to a peak
experience. That is why Jesus and the
disciples came down from the mountain upon Transfiguration.
After all, to maintain the flow, we cannot stay in one
place, or one zone. As the flow
continues, we must be on the constant move, though we may change our paces.
And, this is not only how Lent is but our individuation process (Jung, 1916) is
to be – directed into the fullness in the mystery of the risen Christ.
As Czikszentmihaly (1990) explains, flow also means
increased alertness , namely, mindfulness.
And, flow as an optimal experience can turn into transcendence, thus
enabling to perform beyond the capacity you knew. But, as McDaniel (2004) points out, we may
suffer from compromised alertness if we let our peak experience affect us like
an addiction, due to intricate interactions of endocannabinoids and dopamine. If
this becomes the case, then, we will lose the flow, as well as mindfulness. In
such a case, then, it becomes a negative peak experience. In order to prevent this problem and to
ensure the constant flow, which means constant transformative and transcendental
growth into the fullness, we must have the Jesus-like God-centered
self-identity for the psychospiritual disciplines and resilience.
As we cannot experience a successful marathon without
disciplines and resilience, neither can we have a meaningful and transformative
Lenten journey without disciplines and resilience. And, these necessary factors
are firmly rooted in God at the very core of our self-identity through Christ
our Lord. Thus, the very key for our
optimal Lenten experience is our secure attachment with God at the center of
our self-identity.
