Lent 2026 · Day 12: Bring a Bucket and a Mop (No, Not WAP)

I would be remiss not to acknowledge what is happening in the world right now.

It is not good.

Historically, the United States has rarely been free from international conflict, and the reasons we give for being there--to defend freedom, to help people, to protect the vulnerable--often do not match the reality of what happens on the ground.

If we were truly there to protect people, we would not be bombing a school full of girls.

Beautiful babies with entire lives ahead of them. Girls who probably lit up rooms, who were funny, creative, whimsical, brilliant, and deeply loved by the people in their lives. Futures with wide open spaces.

Most people don’t like to think about war that way.

Because if we did, we would have to face a truth we prefer not to see. Our tax dollars, our political choices, and our national identity are tied to actions we would recognize as atrocities if they were happening in our own communities (which they are).

That realization is uncomfortable because it means we are not only observers of violence.

We are implicated in it.

I am American. That means my government acts in my name, whether I agree with those actions or not. My tax dollars help fund decisions I cannot control, but cannot fully separate myself from either.

So today, in a small way, I want to say something that rarely gets said out loud.

I am sorry. As an American citizen to the global community. I am so very sorry for the sins that we have inflicted on the rest of the world.

Not as a political statement, but as a human one.

Right now it is Ramadan, a sacred month for Muslims, a time of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Families gather before dawn and after sunset. People try to live more intentionally, more compassionately, more faithfully.

And in the middle of that holy time, people are also living under the threat of bombs.

That contrast should disturb us.

Because faith traditions, whether Christian during Lent or Muslim during Ramadan, ask us to examine our lives and our responsibilities to others.

They ask us to see clearly.

Even when the truth is uncomfortable.

There was a moment at work recently that has been stuck in my head.

A woman came into Circle K to cash in a winning scratch-off ticket and buy cigars. I rang up the purchase and realized I had made a small mistake with the change. It happens. I fixed it immediately and refunded the difference.

But she still wasn’t convinced.

After I explained it again, she shrugged and said, “Well, God will make it right if it’s meant to be.”

And before I could stop myself, I said out loud, “Nope. We’re not going to put that on God.”

I had already corrected the mistake. The change had been refunded. There was nothing left for divine intervention to solve.

But what struck me was how quickly people reach for God language to explain things that are actually very human. A math error. A misunderstanding. A moment that simply required honesty and correction.

God is not a cosmic cashier fixing our receipts.

If something is wrong, we fix it.

If we make a mistake, we correct it.

And as a gay person, I’m especially sensitive to people throwing God around casually in ways that shift responsibility away from themselves. Too often faith gets used as a shield, a way to avoid accountability instead of embracing it.

It reminds me of a scene from "Bruce Almighty," where Bruce, after granting everyone’s prayers and creating complete chaos, turns to God (Morgan Freeman) for help. Instead of fixing everything for him, God hands Bruce a mop.

Bruce protests, saying he only gave people what they asked for.

God calmly responds that the problem is people don’t actually know what they want. Everyone expects God to do everything for them. What they fail to realize is that the power to change things was within them all along.

“If you want to see a miracle,” he tells Bruce, “be the miracle.”

That scene seems simple but it is deeply profound.

Because the truth is we have always had the power within us to change our own lives, no matter how messy things get. Sometimes we just have to be willing to pick up the bucket and start mopping.

A little help from friends doesn’t hurt either.

When I look at the division in this country, I’m not surprised by how absurd it all feels. The mess we’re in didn’t appear overnight. It’s the result of leaders who care more about power and profit than people. Leaders who treat entire groups of human beings as expendable because the consequences never reach their own lives.

But I refuse to live in that kind of darkness.

Instead I ask a different question: How do we bring light back into the world?

Not in the way of an electrician, flipping a switch and pretending the problem is solved. But by choosing, every day, to act with courage, compassion, and clarity.

If miracles are going to happen, they won’t come from someone else fixing everything for us.

They will come from ordinary people deciding to be the miracle themselves.

And right now, the world needs that more than ever.

Faith, if it means anything, should push us toward honesty, not away from it.

And the same thing is true on a much larger scale.

When harm is done in our name, when innocent people suffer because of political decisions, we cannot shrug and say that somehow God will make it right.

Those are human choices.

Which means they require human accountability.

The scriptures are full of stories about how hard this kind of honesty actually is.

When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they didn’t immediately celebrate freedom. They complained. They longed for the life they had just escaped. The desert was hard. The future was uncertain. At least in Egypt they understood the rules, even if those rules were cruel.

It took a whole generation wandering in the wilderness before they were ready to enter the promised land.

Jesus ran into the same reality. People loved listening to him, right up until the moment they realized that following him meant changing their lives. It meant sacrifice. It meant letting go of the systems and comforts they were used to, even when those systems were unjust.

At that point, many walked away.

Some even helped put him on a cross.

Because the truth is that human beings often prefer a familiar injustice over an uncertain freedom.

We cling to the life we know, even when it is broken.

Lent asks us to confront that instinct.

To tell the truth about ourselves, our systems, and the harm we participate in without noticing.

Not so we can drown in guilt, but so we can begin the long, uncomfortable work of repentance.

Lenten Reflection

“Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” — Isaiah 1:17

Lent is a season of examination.

Not only of personal habits and private failings, but of the systems we participate in and the suffering we sometimes learn to ignore.

Repentance begins with honesty.

With the humility to admit that our lives are connected to people far beyond our borders, and that the comforts we enjoy are often entangled with harms we would rather not see.

There is a kind of anger that grows out of that realization.

Not the scattered anger that burns everything down, but the focused anger that refuses to look away from what is broken.

The prophets carried that kind of anger. It was not hatred. It was moral clarity.

Because once you see injustice clearly, indifference is no longer possible.

If we are honest about what is happening in our country and in the world, then the work ahead of us is not small. It will require confronting willful blindness, challenging systems that reward exploitation, and resisting the temptation to retreat into apathy simply because the problems feel too large.

Empires rarely collapse all at once. They decay slowly, from the inside, when injustice becomes normal and truth becomes inconvenient.

Lent asks us not to look away from that decay.

It asks us to tell the truth about it.

And then to decide whether we will participate in repairing what is broken, or simply watch while it falls apart.

Justice, compassion, and repentance are not abstract ideals.

They are work.

And the time for that work is now.

Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

As above. So below.

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