My dad grew up in a Texas sharecropper’s shack during the Great Depression. He was barely a teenager when the “Grasshopper Wars” began. The winged insects darkened the sky like storm clouds, swooping down on crops and stripping them to stubble. Driving turned dangerous as the roads became slick with...

In seminary, I was a youth pastor. Every summer during this time, I served as a volunteer at high school church camp. Those were halcyon days spent in small groups, worshipping under the stars, eating junk food with no regret and climbing  “The Mountain,” a cedar-cloaked bluff topped with a...

No one really knows the exact origins of Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent.  A ritual for the “Day of Ashes” is contained in an 8th-century church document, but we know the influences for this solemn observance stretch all the way back to Old Testament times. Here are three...

  That curious season of Lent is upon us with its ashes and forty days and emphasis on self-denial. Where did it come from? What does it mean? Should we even care? Here are 9 interesting facts that you can add to your kettle of Lenten knowledge. 1. Yes, I Have...

  Ash Wednesday cometh and, with it, the beginning of Lent. My earliest memories of Lent are rooted in my community theater days in Oklahoma. At a rehearsal on a late-winter evening, I remember a grizzled actor named Bob announcing that he was giving up Brown Derby beer for Lent. I was a happy-go-lucky college...

With Ash Wednesday, the shadowy journey of Lent has begun. Lent is a season that doesn’t bring warm fuzzies like Christmas or Easter. You’re not going to find a Hallmark card wishing you an Awesome Ash Wednesday or a Luscious Lent. It’s 40 days of dust, ashes, temptation, self-denial, gloom,...