C is for chicken, that's good enough for me.

By and large, being vegan has gone more smoothly than I expected these past 3 weeks. It takes a little more planning and research, and I still really miss cheese, but I do LOVE veggies and take great pride in making them delicious enough to entice my husband and kids. So it's not like I was acutely suffering every time a meal hour rolled around.

But then, chicken.

A rotisserie chicken, to be precise. Its heady scent, golden brown skin, and perfectly moist flesh caught me off guard about 5 days into Lent. As I went about my usual meal-prep-for-the-normals work, I stumbled right into the meat-temptation crisis without even seeing it coming. As I began to pull the meat from the bones, the texture alone was nearly enough to send me into a Cookie Monster style feeding frenzy!

Up until that moment, the first few days had been challenging, but manageable. I've taken a general strategy of sensory avoidance of foods that tempt me most, except for when I can be mindful and intentional enough to really enjoy the sights and smells I miss. I try not to let myself gaze with absentminded longing at this quesadilla or that shrimp alfredo, but when I'm well-prepared you just might catch me deeply sniffing my son's burrito before I let him eat it. (Don't judge me!)

But what I hadn't counted on was the impact of moving past sight and smell, to touch. Simply engaging this one additional sense was enough to nearly override all reason and resolve, and derail this plant-based train while it was hardly out of the station. And I don't even really like chicken that much! It was just the sensory immersion... chicken in my eyes.... chicken in my nose.... chicken in my fingers.... how can it not go in my mouth next???

That moment of being overwhelmed and nearly overpowered was powerful. All that kept my mouth empty through deboning that entire bird was Meaghan. I thought, "She doesn't even know I'm doing this. How can it matter if I just have one tiny bite?" And then, in answer, from the wiser part of me: "Does it matter if she knows? Your purpose in this is to know her experience better. So know her better in this."


Counting the Cost 
Two things became crystal clear in that very moment:

• I could make this easier: I could purge the whole house of animal products, and inflict a vegan diet on my husband and our other 2 kids (even if it might lead to mutiny). But I can't fully embrace the experience if I avoid the tensions she lives with as a member of this non-vegan house every day.
• The slow, trudging, daily compliance to the rules is a part of being vegan, but I would never gain fuller understanding of Meaghan's experience/choices/sacrifices without pushing through that moment with integrity, even if no one would see the compromise.

One who in every respect has been tempted...
And then, as I wrestled with my heart and appetite, struggling to puzzle out whether the wrestling itself had any value, that still small Voice: "I know. I did this once for you."

Since then we have a great high priest who as passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Suddenly, there was vision to see my Savior a little better... a little bigger. He could have been incarnated onto some mountain in some remote corner of his world. He could have lived out his days  isolated, set apart physically, walking the path of least resistance until it was time for his sacrificial death. He could have made it easier for himself.

But he got dirty instead. He walked right in among us, touched the socially, physically, and spiritually unclean. He was the object of more than his share of ridicule, opposition, oppression, and slander. He not only put on our flesh but walked it down a path that made him intimately familiar with every temptation I face, yet without sin.

This moment rocked me. It was like when you stand between two mirrors, and see yourself seeing yourself. This small taste of sympathizing with Jesus' experience of learning to sympathize with my experience was powerful, transformative. Sharing in his perspective (even in microcosm) was profoundly faith-building and satisfying... in ways the best of chicken just can't touch.

Have this mind...

My daughter, Meaghan, is incredible.

Small-statured and often silent, our 16-year-old has been teaching me daily since her father and I married last year that there are many kinds of strength.  In particular, her choice to move from vegetarianism to veganism last Spring has showcased her uncommon strengths in:

• Self-control (I mean, seriously... a life without cheese???)
• Independence
• Determination to break from convenient/pervasive nutritional frameworks in our community in order to live out her convictions
• Creativity in baking without milk or eggs (If you don't think this deserves its own line item of acknowledgement, you haven't watched a vegan make cookies)

I have admired Meaghan's strength and self-discipline mostly from afar, as her taciturn nature has made getting to know her a bit slow going. While far from perfectly consistent (or as creative as she is), I have spent the last year trying to show her love through my cooking. It has actually been surprisingly easy to adjust a portion of each meal to conform to vegan rules with just a bit more care and label reading while grocery shopping, since I happen to already be running an approximately 85% plant-based diet for our household anyway.

Still, cooking for her has proven an inadequate strategy for entering Meaghan's world...

"God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering..."

As I have been praying for Meaghan this year, and seeking ways to build relationship with her, Lent has been approaching. Growing up Southern Baptist, we didn't do Lent. To be honest, I never understood what the purpose could possibly be of depriving oneself of something enjoyable for 40 days, especially if it doesn't add a thing to my salvation. (I may have jokingly resolved to give up shame and/or self-control in previous years, but that's about as close as I got to observance.) Not to be deterred by my cavalier attitude, the Lord blessed me with a few friends in adult life who observe Lent each year, and the idea lodged itself somewhere deep in my subconscious. 

There was something beautifully austere and weighty in what these friends do. I couldn't quite see the form of the thing clearly, but gradually I started wanting to have it, too. So, for the last 3 years or so, I've intended to observe Lent. (Celebrate the baby steps, folks.) But somehow Ash Wednesday always snuck up on me, and a rushed, thoughtless, last-minute sacrifice (which would likely only be of whatever thing I'm craving in the moment I remember Lent looming) just didn't seem to be taking this thing seriously enough.

This year's Lent didn't sneak up on me, but that doesn't mean I managed to prepare adequately. My disclaimer: I'm learning as I go, and trying to let the Lord use this experience however He will. I intended to read up on Lent this winter and go in knowing what it's all about and how to do it "right"... the reality of not doing this reading was almost enough excuse to put it off until next year.

But then the Lord brought Meaghan to mind.

To be more accurate, the Lord brought Jesus and my own 16-year-old self to mind. He reminded me of how far off and unreachable I had chosen to make myself, and of the incredible distance he came to enter my world and wear my experience...

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Phil 2:5-8

He reminded me how the one who spoke everything into being and holds it all together laid aside his comfort, his glory, his rights to take on our fragile, fallible flesh and limitations in order to reach us. Revealing just a glimpse of his experience through this analogous microcosm of my household, Jesus at once made himself yet more precious and personally invited me into Lent.

Don't get me wrong. I've got no delusions of grandeur here. I'm not comparing myself and this small/temporary sacrifice to His history-changing one. I'm not making any moral judgments about consuming or abstaining from animal products. And I'm not expecting this to necessarily change anything in my relationship with my daughter (to be honest, I haven't even told her about this resolution). My hope for this season of sacrifice is just for more understanding:

• of my Savior's experience in leaving his comfort and donning our flesh to reach us, and
• of my daughter's experience in choosing to live by her convictions rather than convenience, as part of a subpopulation that receives small consideration (and, at times, large disdain) from our community

For the record, I really miss cheese.
We're now, actually, almost 2 weeks into Lent, which means I've been observing vegan rules for the last 12 days. It has gotten, if not easier, at least more familiar... more habitual. I'm daily learning more about myself, Jesus, and maybe even Meaghan. Looking forward to sharing the lessons in days to come...