"Unless a grain of wheat..."

During this Lenten season, folks give up different things: chocolate, candy, meat, etc. In year's past, I have heard people suggest that it would be better to work on something rather than "give up" something. "I am going to work on being more positive..." The language of relinquishing has left people bereft somehow. Nonsense. People have amazing ways of expressing their inability to sacrifice. The reason why we give up something and know that is what we are doing is because we recognize that personal change is difficult. We do not try to change everything about ourselves but during Lent, a time of purification, we choose one thing in our lives that we face with difficulty and we struggle with it as a sign of one's love for God. God does not need it, but we do it because we need it. But too often, folks in society want things made easier and do not want to have to face the shortcomings that they have built into their lives. As a result, the idea of sacrifice falls on deaf ears. People can choose. But people can also choose poorly. Tobias Smollett once wrote: "Some people are wise, some are otherwise..."