by Tom Towns

GUEST COLUMNIST

Lent is a time for Christian repentance. What might that mean?

For many, "Christian" is a term that includes the idea of "living an aware life." Being "Christian" is being rational, reasonable and awake. Then Christian repentance is wanting to get back to a balanced, sane life after becoming aware of how we make irrational, unreasonable and difficult to justify decisions, abandoning consideration of what is wise, good, realistic and God's will.

Throughout Christian history, those who understood and participated in Christian repentance were rational, aware and awake individuals. For one, John Wesley, the originator of the Methodist Church, was very rational and methodical, disciplining himself through hours of prayer to stay humble and focused, writing a lot and consciously compelling himself to do what he understood to be God's will.

Throughout Christian history, those who understood and participated in Christian repentance were rational, aware and awake individuals. For one, John Wesley, the originator of the Methodist Church, was very rational and methodical, disciplining himself through hours of prayer to stay humble and focused, writing a lot and consciously compelling himself to do what he understood to be God's will.

Martin Luther was another rational person, using his intelligence to teach seminary and challenge his church into a major debate. As a reasonable and faithful Catholic priest, Martin put his debate into "The 95 Theses," which he purportedly nailed to a church door and asked church authorities to discuss. That debate resulted in what we now call the Reformation, but it started as a reasonable act wrought by a reasonable person.

In this context, committing sin is living a lifestyle created by irrational, unreasonable, and difficult to justify decisions that generate markedly chaotic and miserable lives. That chaos and misery float like flotsam and jetsam in some dreary, polluted cosmic river, always endeavoring to overflow its river banks made of logic and common sense. It's a life that forces the flooding and erosion of what might be wiser and more realistic ground. Sinfulness spawns an unreflective, almost unconscious life devoid of any desire to step back to consider what's happening in the world and to weigh options. And this rather dismal life of a "sinner" originates in a couple of ways.

On one hand, the "sinner" sins unintentionally. They live an unconscious and unreflective life that religiously carries out behaviors without concern for consequences, especially consequences involving others. Such a person does not consciously choose to exclude humanity, reality and all the rest of the existence when making decisions, but, for whatever reason, reality simply never becomes part of the equation. It's just the way life is for them, and Christianity or any other awareness-raising agenda seems unnecessary.

On the other hand, committing sin for others can be a conscious intent to live with disregard for anything or anyone, including reality, itself. And as long as these intentional "sinners" get what they want when they want it, they could care less about the rest of the world. In either case, committing sin is living in such a way that is difficult to justify in light of how it affects others and our world. It's living a life that appears to lack reason; and, it's a life fraught with making decisions that seem ultimately irrational, because they exclude everyone and everything, including reality itself.

Christian Lent, then, becomes a time when we can repent. We get to regroup. It's a time when we can step back, take a meaningful, attentive look at how we stray from reason, awareness, sensibility and interest in God's will, so that by the time Easter arrives -- which is March 23 this year -- we might have found our way back to the path that makes sense and feels more comfortably balanced. It's a time to check ourselves into "God's wellness clinic" and to get a "progress report." If our "progress report" tells us that we're a bit too far astray from equilibrium, by repenting, regrouping and choosing again to use our sensibilities, we might find our way to recovery. Through repentance, we are able to cognitively reset our goals for healthy living and use our awareness and insights to re-instruct us on what is good, wise and sound.

Lent, then, is a great time to celebrate God's word that purposefully guides us back to reason. It's a season when God's will intentionally strives to enlighten us. And with God's compassionate and forgiving nature, we'll be able to travel unobstructed on our Lenten pilgrimage, leading us again to our senses.

Think about it, Tom