I've recently been invited by Renovaré, the organization founded by Richard Foster, Dallas Willard and friends, to begin blogging on their website. Today was my first post there. Appropriately, I've shared some reflections about Shrove Tuesday (which is today) and Lent (which starts tomorrow.) What follows is the first paragraph of that post. You can read the rest by clicking on "Read More."

In the Protestant and Catholic traditions, today is Shrove Tuesday. Most people in North America know today by its more popular name—Mardi Gras, a day for pancakes and watching most of New Orleans go more than a little bit wild.

"Shrove" is actually the past tense of the English verb "to shrive," a verb that doesn't conform to all of those neat and tidy conjugation rules that I learned in school, but is nonetheless a very useful word for followers of Christ to know. According to Merrimam Webster, "to shrive" means "to confess ones sins, especially to a priest" or "to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to" or, most kindly, "to free from guilt."

To free from guilt.

That phrase just makes you take a deep breath, doesn't it? 

Read more here.