Lenten Day 24: Kathleen McMahan

March 12, 2024

“Don’t feed the monster.” Kathleen McMahan

So, haha on me.  I have been miscounting the days of Lent since I included the first Sunday in my count!  Realizing my error, I recalculated, renumbered my blogs, and now have three additional meditations to write to make the numbers work.  Just when I thought I was getting so close to the end . . . .  At any rate, apologies for any confusion out there.

My first thought, of course, was “I cannot believe I did that!” followed by “How did I do that?” quickly followed by “Well, of course I would do that!”  Embarrassed!  What would people think of me?  And there, of course, is the crux of today’s quotation.  I was feeding the monster.

This quotation arose  years ago when my daughter, Kathleen, was a teenager and she heard me complaining to myself about myself.  “Mom,” she said, “don’t feed the monster.”  I immediately stopped, caught short by her words of gentle admonishment and wisdom.  Coming from a teenaged girl, those words were quite remarkable and I took them to heart.  Since then, when I find myself being critical about myself or hear someone else doing so, I quietly say, “Don’t feed the monster.”

What is the monster? For me in this situation, it’s that critical voice often called the “judge,” the old voice, old record, of a parent, a teacher, a pastor, a friend, a sibling that made us feel less-than and not good enough and that likes to remind us of that.  But there are all kinds of monsters to feed.  Just look around.  Monsters are any entities/thoughts/memories/judgments that don’t sound like God, that don’t sound like love, that are not compassionate, that separate us from Love, that give us false feedback. Feeding the monster makes us deaf to the beautiful affirmations and truths of Psalm 139, that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14), of Isaiah 49:16 that each of us is “engraved on the palm of God’s hand,” of Isaiah 43:4 that we are “precious, honored, and loved” by God, and especially of Genesis 1:27 that we are “made in the image of God.”

Feeding this type of monster comes somewhere for that mistaken notion that we can only be loved and accepted if we are perfect. Instead of feeding the monster, we can turn it toward the truth of Love. Nobody is perfect, and God loves us in our imperfection. So, instead of feeding my monster, I’m taking my  husband’s comment to heart:  “It’s the meditations that matter, not the number of the day.”  I’m taking up this blog and preparing to write three additional mediations. I remember my daughter’s wisdom, and make it my prayer.

Blessings ~ Rosemary