Tale of a Fourth Grade Nothing

A couple of years ago I undertook a project of sorting through a couple decades’ worth of mementoes, purging quite a bit of the random pieces of personal memorabilia that no longer held enough significance to warrant keeping. One thing I kept, and actually have posted above my desk here in the office, is a quarter-sheet of fading construction paper on which I wrote down two “Things I will do for Jesus.” My best guess is that this was a Lenten exercise from a religious education class, probably from when I was in fourth grade. The two things I said I would do for Jesus were:
1. I will eat with J and I will listen to her and I will wait for her.
2. I will try to remember to bring money for the poor and for church.

J was a girl with whom I’d been a classmate and participant in YMCA activities for a few years already. Taking my statement at face value, you might think that I was expressing compassion as part of my Lenten journey. But when I think back on my 9-year-old self, I know better. I know that I regarded treating J as she deserved to be treated as something I would do only if asked to do so by Jesus.

You see, even by fourth grade I found myself deep in the trenches of “mean girl” wars among my classmates, boys and girls alike. And I was regularly a loser in those battles, as everyone had learned back in first grade that it was insanely easy to push my buttons and make me cry. I was an easy target if only for that reason (although there were probably more). In fourth grade I was desperately trying to maintain some social standing among my peers, and I perceived—probably incorrectly—that J was even lower in the pecking order than I was. So by making her #1 on my To Do List for Lent, I wasn’t taking something on. I was giving up what was obviously the most important thing to me at that time: social acceptance. I was saying, “Hey, Jesus, do you see what I’m doing? Do you see?!? I hope you appreciate this!” Taking money out of my allowance for the poor and for church was a distant second compared to hanging out with someone even less cool than I.

I wish I could say that that was a one-time occurrence, but I remember another instance in junior high when I told the pudgy kid everyone picked on that I’d loan him a pencil in class, “but only cause it’s Lent.” So much for not praying like the hypocrites.

Now that Lent has begun, I find myself thinking about what I’ve given up and taken on in past years as I try to discern what will be truly meaningful this year. But now that J and I have "re-friended" each other on Facebook, I think I'll start by writing her a note to find out how things are going in her life. And this time, I'll really listen.

-- Mary Kate