Lent is a time of self-denial and sacrifice. These aren’t terribly popular words in our culture. They seem to many today part of a dark and dingy past when religious superstition dominated all. But what of the rampant self-indulgence that governs today? Is the ability to eat, drink, spend, or have sex whenever you want to – which seem to be the goals lifted by most television programs I see – really an expression of freedom, let alone dignity or meaning? What is strength is you cannot govern yourself? What is wealth if you go to bed each night fearful that you do not have enough? What is power if you are constantly driven by the need...

Sooner or later you make a choice. Do you think you’re the center of the world, or can you give those around you the benefit of the doubt, imagine sympathetically the challenges they may face, and emphasize and identify with them rather than see them as opponents or obstacles? I know that sounds like an easy choice, but as David Foster Wallace says, we are faced with this choice on numerous occasion nearly every day of our lives, and all too often we settle for the default setting where we assume our challenges are greater than those faced by others, our frustrations more valid and vexing, our excuses more understandable, our priorities...