I grew up in the Pentecostal church where “lent” was simply the past tense of “lend”. But over the last twenty years I have gradually become familiar with the church calendar and that somber season leading up to Easter. The term derives from the Old English word “lencten”, meaning spring, and it heralds that time […]
Lent
How to be spiritual in five minutes (or less): A Lenten Reflection
This is a repost of an article I published in 2010 at The Christian Post (with two tweaks). *** We live in a Dr. Phil world. It is a world in which deeply scarred, dysfunctional people can receive five minutes of counsel delivered with a Texas drawl, and supposedly be well on the road to […]
Forget New Years. What’s your Ash Wednesday vow?
Today is Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of Lent, a time of repentance, soul-introspection and self-abnegation leading up to Easter. (Visit an Ash Wednesday service and you’ll have the sign of the cross smeared on your forehead in ashes. Those ashes are traditionally made from the dried out palm fronds used in the previous year’s Palm Sunday service. This […]