We are in the season of Lent. I only know this because I happened to end up at a Catholic law school — a super, duper Catholic law school. I only learned how super, duper it truly was on the very first day of school at the start of my Contracts class. The professor led us in the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t see a lot coming. I didn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer.
ND wasn’t my first choice of schools. Why? Because out of two hundred or so accredited law schools in the United States it was ranked number sixteen and I wanted to go to a top ten school. Even I’m shaking my head at that level of haughtiness. I applied to ND as the end of the rolling admissions process approached and I still hadn’t heard from any of my preferred schools. When I did receive my one and only acceptance letter, it felt like a consolation prize from the Universe. To me it meant I sucked and that I couldn’t get things right. Spoiler alert — I had a lot of things to learn.
I had wanted to go to a top ten school, preferably an Ivy League one, because I wanted to make up for a disappointing undergraduate career; a career where I missed honors by tenths of a point. Repeat — tenths of a point. I wanted a do-over and I wanted to do it in an environment replicating the original battlefield I had lost on.
The truth of the matter was, I missed my honors by tenths of a point because of a series of less than smart choices on my part, choices involving stubborn pride and lack of focus. I made these choices in part because, unbeknownst to me, I was a member of the walking wounded club—those who look normal on the outside, function at a high level, but hide great pain. This fact didn’t hit me until law school when my daily low level depression got t-boned by a fast moving case of acute depression. Trying to understand how it all worked and why I felt the way I did, a psychiatrist (who I had only known for less than fifteen minutes) boiled it down to this — I wasn’t treated very well when I was little. When he said that, I felt my own heart break. It broke for me. A first step towards self-compassion, of being warm towards myself. Others had tried to explain it to me many times before, but things lined up that day so I could finally hear it. Sometimes you need just the right witness.
It would take some looking back to figure this out, but me falling apart in a place like ND helped me orient myself in a way I don’t think I really could have in a non-religious environment. Being where mystery is allowed, especially in day-to-day activities, opens up some internal doors. It’s not that I became religious, because I didn’t. It’s not that it was an idyllic experience. Not even close. In fact I think ND is heavily flawed and counter to many of my beliefs. But I did learn to love and appreciate the phenomenon and connection that is awe — the awe of God, the awe of life, the awe of standing in the rain after a long hard winter watching ducklings follow their mom on their first swim. The feeling of awe upon realizing much, much later that after my own long hard winter, I had made it through and was going to be all right.
I am in awe of you, dear friend. Lent is my favorite Catholic season, and I loved sharing it with you at ND. While some people think Lent is a real downer (ok, it is to an extent), I believe it reminds us we are mortal and to recognize that even our temptations and failures have some value or worth. I’m going to find a Stations of the Cross somewhere here in the desert, preferably outdoors.