Lent and visiting the Hummels

Faithfulness, Little Women, and doing things we don't want to do

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For a week the amount of virtue in the old house would have supplied the neighborhood. It was really amazing, for everyone seemed in a heavenly frame of mind, and self-denial was all the fashion. Relieved of their first anxiety about their father, the girls insensibly relaxed their praiseworthy efforts a little, and began to fall back into old ways. They did not forget their motto, but hoping and keeping busy seemed to grow easier, and after such tremendous exertions, they felt that Endeavor deserved a holiday, and gave it a good many.

- L.M. Alcott, Little Women

As I sat in an Ash Wednesday service last night, and pondering if there was something I needed to “give up” or to “take up” for Lent, this passage from Little Women came to mind. In our Little Women Read Along, we’ve been thinking about Little Women as a story that helps us practice virtue (since it was originally based on Pilgrim’s Progress, a story entirely about living a virtuous life¹).

Given that I grew up in a pretty healthy family, with a pretty comfortable life, I am not someone who needs to be worried about working through religious trauma. Lent, and the idea of practicing spiritual disciplines - things like prayer, giving up something like food, or taking up some act of service - these things are not unhealthy triggers for me. My discomfort is just the plain old discomfort that comes from doing the right thing when I’d rather not.

I won’t tell you my Lenten discipline, and not because I am overly pious and don’t want to toot my own horn. It’s more that it’s embarrassing. It shouldn’t even be a discipline. This is something that for almost every reason I can think of (relational, educational, spiritual), I should do. It’s deeply aligned with my values and the kind of person I want to be, even who I want my kids to be. It’s not even that altruistic - I can check some boxes off my to-do list if I commit to doing this thing! And yet… it’s a bit inconvenient. It requires me to rearrange my schedule. It requires me to step a bit outside of my comfort zone. I can always come up with a legitimate reason why “this week” is not the reason to start.

I can relate to Jo, who tells Beth she can’t visit the Hummels because she has a head cold. (The cold has kept her from work as well, which she doesn’t really mind).

Beth says, “I thought it was almost well.”

“It’s well enough for me to go out with Laurie, but not well enough to go to the Hummels’,” said Jo, laughing, but looking a little ashamed of her inconsistency.

Beth tries to convince them, and Meg promises to go the next day.

“Ask Hannah for some nice little mess, and take it round, Beth, the fresh air will do you good,” said Jo, adding apologetically, “I’d go but I want to finish my writing.”

Well enough to go out with Laurie but not well enough to visit the Hummels. Hits a bit too close to home. Alcott titles this chapter “Little Faithful” (another Pilgrim’s Progress reference), and I appreciate how in this section she highlights the fact that virtue is not grown through giant fits of piety.

A crisis is not the test.

The true test comes later, when the crisis is over, and now we are stuck with the somewhat boring work of faithfully keeping our word, showing up when we said we would, and doing the right thing not once, but every day. Virtue is not often found in grand heroic gestures, but little acts of faithfulness. We don’t need enough virtue to supply the neighbourhood. We just need enough to get through this one day, this one moment where we know what we need to do but we’d just rather not.

But this is what gives me hope (even if Alcott never mentions it). There’s an old Christian hymn about faithfulness but this song is not about our faithfulness. It’s an entire song about God’s faithfulness. God never lounges on the couch saying he’d “just rather not today.” God is like Beth, stepping in to our sin and showing up at great cost to himself. God is not fickle, even when we are. In the wilderness of Lent, he is there providing the grace and the food for each day, making water flow in the desert whether we glance up and acknowledge it or not.

Dying to ourselves in little ways is painful.

But there is strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

Not because we are faithful, but because He is.

PS: If this essay was fun- join our Little Women Read Along group! We’re almost done… but that doesn’t mean you can’t start reading the book now- join in the comment sections every few weeks and share your thoughts! That’s what makes it fun!