Commentary

For Orthodox Christians to experience the benefits and purpose of any Lenten season, fasting is as much a part of this journey as prayer is in the Christian faith.

We read with great dismay that the Aryan Freedom Network, a white supremacist group, is having a gathering on March 12 at Hayden Lake and has said that part of their purpose is to identify, “things we can do to make our communities a little better.”

God, our loving Heavenly Father, wants us to find happiness and joy.

After Russia declared war on Ukraine, I remembered the aftermath of war I saw on my trips to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Fortunately, there is another, more practical — and faithful — response to all these distractions of life: the season of Lent.

When our daughter was born in 1990, I asked Ginny if we could name her after Alyce. Ginny did not mind the tribute, but she thought Alyce was a bit old fashioned, even with the unusual spelling. So, we named our daughter Alissa. While it is distinctly my daughter’s name, for me it always evoked Alyce’s memory, as a tribute name should.