A recent Sunday essay by Jim Dodson was an introduction to the season of Lent. As a retired minister, I began to read it with anticipation. While I could appreciate his reflections from a friend of earlier years, his lapse into negative comments about the dark side of Lent were difficult to accept. His definition or meaning of the word "Lent" was "light," which is most appropriate.

Lent is a time of looking back, a time for recall and bringing the focus of the greatest life ever lived to shine on the scene of contemporary humanity. Jesus Christ came to dispel darkness and to dispense the greatest emotion known to humanity -- love, divine love.

Any act of sacrifice, diet, giving aid to the unfortunate, extra time for devotion and worship, are offerings of praise and thanksgiving.

Faces of mourning, or grief, are foreign to Lent. Rather, Lent (light) has brought into the world faith, hope and love from a divine deposit that can never be overdrawn. Jesus said, "He (they) that follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life." If these truths would be believed and followed, the world of 2009 could emerge from its eclipse of darkness.

Lent and Easter draw humanity into the embrace of the One who is the way, the truth and the life, and ultimately the "Light of the world."

Rev. Robert Bundy (retired)

United Methodist minister

Pinehurst