So Lent starts on Wed. Are you doing anything to mark Lent this year?

Here is my draft of my message for Sunday.

Growing in Holiness 2013 02 17 Lent 1  Rom 10:4-13

There is the old story about the head of a monastery.  One day, a very old copy of the guidelines for their order was found,  and he carefully reads it.  He suddenly starts wailing. They dropped the r.  The word was celebrate.

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, a time to open ourselves to coming closer to God, and allowing God to come closer to us.

By Noelle Boughton

I remember being a young journalism student and feeling too shy to meet people. I read Barbara Walters’ 1970 classic, How to talk with practically anybody about practically anything, and discovered one of the keys to her social success was asking people about themselves because, she said, people always like to talk about themselves.