It seems trivial to be writing about frustration when so many in Ukraine are in real crisis. Crisis calls for action or for intentional non-action. Fight or flight or freeze are the responses to crisis. Frustration, on the other hand, prompts me toward hand wringing, brow furrowing, pacing, nervous inaction. I am not frustrated in a crisis. I am frustrated when life is normal, when I have nothing of significance to celebrate or grieve. Frustration becomes an excuse for inaction. That realization is my clue to the true nature of frustration.

Again, from Joan Chittister, “To claim to be frustrated in the midst of life’s normalcies only defeats our desire to be a fully functioning human being. And, ironically, we do it to ourselves.” I cannot be responsible in my actions, responsive in my relationships, or congruous with who I want to be if I am busy being annoyed at something of little significance.

attentionFor me, frustration is my failure to make a clear choice about who I want to be in the moment. It is my excuse to avoid the significance of the moment at hand, the failure to make a clear choice of living fully in the moment at hand. It is the decision to not pay attention.

Lent is about paying attention. I will not recognize the possibilities and the responsibilities of this moment if I am focused on the temporary or imagined irritations to it. Chittister suggests that without the ability to center on what counts, frustration obstructs us from being what we are meant to be—loving parents, good friends, partners, full participants in the creation of goodness in the world.

My challenge this Lenten season is to be present in this moment rather than distracted by the things that are not to my liking, to see what life presents me rather than getting caught up in my imagined control over what’s going on around me.