I have been thinking about the rich young man’s question to Jesus. It’s such a young-person thing to ask, isn’t it? As a younger person, I was asking it, in one way or another, all the time: “Am I enough?” “Is it enough?” “What else should I be doing?” The question this young man asked Jesus was always with me. And so I was conscientious to the point of scrupulosity as a young person, at least in some things. And you know what? For me, it worked out pretty well. I notched a lot of accomplishments, had lots of external validation, plenty of people telling me I was doing great. What I didn’t have was Jesus there to give me a reality check. (I read His answer to the young man as, “Guess what, son? It will never be enough because your math doesn’t math. Sell it all; see what happens.”)
Instead of Jesus, I got perimenopause. The epiphany of my incipient middle age is that the answer to the question “What lack I yet?” has become “I don’t care.” [1]
It’s new to me, this attitude, and it feels very transgressive, and even a little bit dangerous. I want to be clear: It’s not that I don’t know I’m lacking. I have faults; I know many of them well and discover new ones all the time. I still want to grow. I still fully embrace the idea that on any given question I could be wrong. But I may finally understand what Mary Oliver means when she says you don’t have to be good. I am not performing goodness anymore. I’m done with that. Because yeah, I’m lacking. But that’s not the important thing. It’s not the interesting question.
When you can finally set down the question of what you lack, the question that comes rushing in to fill the vacuum is, What do I want?
It felt scary at first to stare that question down, but it turns out, Mary Oliver was right again. It turns out, I want good things. Connection and kindness, and quiet afternoons to read and write. Time with my kids and my husband and my siblings. More attention to devote to the garden, and more opportunity to let my feet wander this beautiful planet.
“What lack I yet?” is an immature question, because it will always require an external adjudicator. When we are young, those mechanisms are helpful. They’re necessary. They’re how we learn. But there ought to come a time in a life when we accept that we simply are, and allow ourselves to make peace with being and knowing that.
I don’t think the rhetoric from the Church is especially helpful in this regard. The institution, at least, is in the business of external adjudication. Keeping us asking, always, perpetually “What lack I yet?” ensures that at least some of us will always come back, brows furrowed, convinced only they can give us the answer. On the other hand, the theological training I received, such as it is, from my ongoing years of Mormonism has also fitted me with the tools that helped me to realize it was time to ask the new question. And I have had Mormon mentors, many of them I now realize, who modeled and successfully navigated the transition from “What lack I yet?” to “Being who I am, what do I want?”
—
What do you think? Is “What lack I yet?” a helpful question? Do you still find yourself asking it? Do you think it’s a question the Church is invested in our asking? And what connection might it have to concepts like “daily repentance”?
Both of my questions are egocentric (literally I-centered). While I think there is a place for such questions, are the better questions other-oriented?
Do you have a question you find that you ask yourself a lot? What is it, and why do you think you ask it?
Looking forward to your comments!
[1] I considered phrasing this more accurately and colorfully, but this a Mormon blog, after all.
