The McCollumn -2/24: "Lent removal"

Growing up Southern Baptist, I can’t claim to have a great grasp or even mild understanding of the Lenten season and its multitude of sacrifices and restrictions.

I always thought one of the perks of Protestantism was not involving ourselves in such things, but social media appears to show me that people are celebrating Lent regardless of dogma or denomination.

Across Facebook and the Twitterverse, countless numbers of people are giving up everything from soft drinks to video games, chocolate to daytime soaps and even barring themselves from using the very social media outlets they’re using to announce their Lenten bans.

Please don’t take this as me bashing people who legitimately give up perks and favorites during this season for real religious reasons — the people who recognize the sacrifice as a reminder for reflection and a need for simplification of the modern life.

The Lenten observations are not about you giving up meaningless guilty pleasures.

“I’m going to give up painting my toenails,” proclaimed one Facebook friend.

You should be commended for your bravery, madame.

Your commitment to your cause is not unlike a modern day St. Joan, bravely clamoring your truth even as the fires dance beneath your feet.

By denying the world the gift you give us with your gloriously-painted appendages, how will we know beauty until you bring your light back on that long-awaited Easter morn.

(If that’s the most you can “sacrifice,” I sincerely doubt both your sincerity and your brain’s basic functions.)

What Lent doesn’t mean is you complaining about your “sacrifice” ad nauseum until Easter Sunday.

I’m writing this column on Ash Wednesday, and I’m almost to the breaking point on seeing people complain about what they’re having to give up.

There are heroes from the churches’ collective histories that sacrificed themselves for their beliefs, so strong was their faith that they would pay the ultimate cost.

You giving up reading the Huffington Post or stopping drinking your daily Coke Zero doesn’t make you Saint Lucy (patroness of martyrs).

If you do choose to follow the Lenten rules this year, make sure you’re doing it for the right reason.

Rather than take to your phone to proclaim your latest craving or complaint, remember that your sacrifice should have a greater cause than becoming another way to voice your anger.

Spend that time in thoughtful prayer for those around you.

Ask for the ability to be a light for those around you, rather than a source of negativity and bitterness.

Find a way to better the world around you.

And if you can’t do any of those things, for the good of all of us, just stop and eat a Crunch Bar or drink your Diet Coke.

Leave Lent to those who truly mean it, and stop being a silly twit.