Lent and the Lost Art of Commonsense
Last year, I decided to “do something meaningful” for Lent. I gave up red meat—simple enough, I thought. A small sacrifice, a gesture of discipline, and certainly nothing dramatic. Except it was dramatic. Red meat also happens to be the most absorbable form of iron, something my 75‑year‑old body apparently relies on more than I realized. My iron levels had been excellent— very excellent—just a few weeks earlier at my annual checkup. Then Lent arrived, I dutifully avoided red meat, and by Easter I was seriously anemic. It took six months of iron pills to climb back to normal. When I told my doctor what I had done, he didn’t prescribe a new medication or order a battery of tests. He simply said, with the kind of dry understatement only a seasoned physician can deliver: “Try commonsense.” And honestly, that may be the best Lenten advice I’ve ever received. Lent isn’t supposed to break us. It isn’t a contest in self‑punishment or a test of how cleverly we can deprive oursel...
