Perhaps you know that beginning February 25, Christians entered a season of the year called “Lent.”

New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, celebrates the day before the beginning of Lent, when people party and eat what they want and act generally irresponsible. It’s a time to let loose before Lent begins. Lent signals a time of introspection and preparation. It’s no coincidence that Lent comes at that time between winter and spring when it seems as though winter will never end and spring will never come. Yet, every year, winter does end, and spring does come; and every year Lent comes along, too.

Lent is a time of remembering. Christians remember the basis of their Christian story, how Jesus of Nazareth lived and walked among human beings as a human being, how he was arrested and tried for treason, how he was crucified and died, and how, three days later, his disciples experienced him among them once again. It’s a story that seems both impossible, and yet full of hope and promise. It’s a tough story to take, but I remember reading something Charles Colson wrote that impressed me. Remember, he was a member of the Watergate cover-up in Nixon’s presidency, and he said this: “We men around President Nixon were among the most powerful in the world. We were wealthy. And yet we couldn’t keep a lie alive for even three months. How in the world then could eleven uneducated fishermen keep their story of Jesus alive if it weren’t true?”

During Lent, the Christian is invited too examine her or his own life in the light Jesus shed on human life. How honest am I? How caring am I? Am I the kind of neighbor I would want someone to be to me? Am I greedy? Am I tired, afraid, worried? During Lent, Christians discover that the very disciples who walked with Jesus experienced the very same questions.

This year during Lent there are a lot of our neighbors who are experiencing financial troubles and worries. Someone I respect very much said the other day “I wouldn’t even mind paying more taxes if it meant my neighbor might live well,” a statement that some people consider foolish, and some others might take to heart and consider for themselves during Lent.

There’s a prayer that the church says sometimes that has this line in it:

If “they” don’t prosper, how can I prosper? If “they” are ill, how can I be well?

Jonathan Kozol wrote in his book “Rachel’s Children,” that those of us who are doing “okay” fear those who are poor because we see the possibilities for ourselves, and as time goes on that fear turns to anger – anger against the very ones who need our compassion.

During Lent, Christians are asked to examine those human emotions against a kind of impossible hope and promise. Our economies are finite, but God’s economies, we learn, are infinite. Just because my neighbor’s welfare increases, mine need not decrease below what I need for my life. During Lent we are called to compassion and empathy; called to walk the dusty roads with Jesus and the disciples toward Jerusalem; called to see healing in the midst of hopelessness, plenty in the midst of want, promise when there seems to be nothing that can be done.

Some people say Christians live in a “never-never land,” but that’s not really so. Instead, we are invited to open our eyes and really see our neighbors and really see their needs, and then to believe that it doesn’t have to be that way. Christians are not called to ignore their world, to be, as one person said, “So heavenly minded we’re no earthly good,” but to be generous and caring and loving in their world.

That’s what the season of Lent is about. At Christmas we celebrated the birth of a baby ‑ babies always bring hope with them, don’t they? During Lent, we’re asked to examine our lives in view of the life of a 33-year-old man from Nazareth who called God “Dad” and who lived a life in God’s presence.

The Lenten “sacrifice” that so many of us are aware of, the “giving up” of something during Lent, is really a call to give up thoughtless living and become people aware of what needs to be done, not only by “the government,” but by us.

So we walk with Jesus, and we see him die. And then, hallelujah, on Easter we also see that he is life, and that he is light; that his light shines in the darkness of our days, and the darkness can never put it out.

I invite you to visit a church of your choosing during Lent, to join in examination, to join in seeing reality, to join in hope. Have a blessed Lent.

Rev. Dr. Marcia Dorey is a retired minister who lives in the Deerfield Valley.