Garrison Keillor has said that if you are shy and from the Midwest and Lutheran, it is always Lent. Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lecten meaning "spring." Its liturgical color is purple, signifying both humility and royalty. In the early church Lent was a time to prepare for baptism, which took place on Easter Eve. Lent is the forty day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter (excluding the six Sundays), a symbolic reminder of the forty years of the Exodus of God's people in the desert and the forty days of Jesus in the wilderness before his ministry. Today Lent is known as a time of deepened discipleship, a period of preparation and penitence, the season of the soul and the sacred story.

Lent is the time for remembering the stories of Jesus' happy entrance into Jerusalem on Palm S…