Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season. By Christian tradition, Ash Wednesday is a day to contemplate the reality of our lives: our mortality, our faults, our weakness, and begin a process which, as we hope, we will move toward redemption, reconciliation with the world, the universe, and God who created it.
By tradition, fasting is a part of that process. We speak of the Lenten Fast, and some of us speak as though Lent was the fast and little more. Long ago, the question of what to give up for Lent morphed into a humorous reversal: many of us claimed to have given up giving things up for Lent.
