Lent: not for Sale
By Deacon Karen Melang, Synod Council Secretary One thing you can say for Lent: it isn’t over commercialized. Oh, sure, you’ll see the occasional fish special in the grocery ads, but that’s about it. The business community has never gotten a grip on Lent the way it has on Christmas. And I guess it’s no wonder. After all, if you get people feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and then plunk down in front of them a beautiful, rosy-cheeked, always sleeping baby, his cool and collected mother and surround them both with pudgy angels – why we all fairly beg businesses to take our money just so that feeling can last! But in the real world – the world of political scandals, of hunger at home and abroad, the world of strange and hostile global entanglements, and private worlds of desperation – in that world the warm and glowy feelings engendered by tiny baby Jesus cannot carry the day. There may be no cashing in on a bloody, beaten Jesus, but still the discipl...