Love Is No Sacrifice

This week “Fat Tuesday” will bring the revelry of Mardi Gras to a close, and Ash Wednesday will launch the Christian faithful into the Lenten season. Lent, popular with many believers, is a forty-day period of time before Easter, intended as a season of repentance, spiritual cleansing, and prayer.

It is common to “give up” something during this time, maybe chocolate, coffee, sex, television, alcohol, or shopping – out of spiritual devotion. The church I grew up in was fundamentalist. Thus, my elders despised anything that resembled “high church.” Candles, robes, liturgies, seasons of the ecclesiastical calendar – these were anathema, or worse, Catholic. Better to be impulsive and unstructured than appear as a Papist.

The pastor delivered his sermon with plenty of emotional pleading, but without notes. To rely upon such was to “quench the Spirit.” Songs were sung by all, not by a few professionals. Prayers were offered…