BY STEVE CRAIN: Columnist

I’m beginning to like the idea of celebrating Lent. If you had asked me to define “Lent” when I was a boy, I probably would have said, “That’s the stuff Daddy gets in his hair when he’s working at the cotton mill.”

Back in the 1950s, many of us church-going Southern youngsters hadn’t heard of Lent. We didn’t know the Lenten season began on Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter, skipping Sundays, and was observed so that Christians would remember Christ’s 40-day fast in the wilderness and center their minds on the Lord before Easter week came.

I was probably in elementary school when I heard of Mardi Gras. Somebody had to enlighten me about Lent to help me understand Mardi Gras. I heard that both were associated with the Roman Catholic Church and that Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” involved having one last fling at partaking of things you were going to give up for Lent. I also heard that some people gave up eating meat for Lent. Some other names for Mardi Gras are Shrove Tuesday, Fasching, or Carnival, and “Carnival” is Latin for “farewell to meat.”

My Protestant pastor sometimes talked about fasting, and, as a kid, I understood fasting as the act of denying the fleshly appetite for food in order to increase the spiritual appetite for God. My church, a small Pentecostal body of believers, never associated fasting with Lent, as I remember. Many Protestants avoided celebrating Lent because it seemed so “Catholic.”

Now, however, it seems that some Protestant churches are rediscovering Lent.

Recently I visited two Page Memorial Church Lenten Lunch services. The church holds Wednesday noontime lunches during Lent. For $4, one can enjoy a meal and a sermon — food for body and soul. On my first visit to Page Memorial, I heard the Rev. Bob Bundy speak and met Dot Moss of Aberdeen and Kim Goodwin of Rockingham. They both work at Penick Village and scoot over to the church for Lenten lunches.

Moss, who attends Aberdeen First Baptist Church, told me that she heard of a man who gave up elevators for Lent. I pictured a heavyset man huffing and puffing, climbing stairs and thinking about Jesus’ sufferings.

“I’ve given up cigarettes for Lent,” said the petite Goodwin, a young, mother who attends St. James Catholic Church in Rockingham. She and her husband have one child.

I told them about an older lady who had heart problems and couldn’t go without food. When she wanted to fast, she’d “fast” her knitting, an enjoyable pastime. When the urge to knit came, she’d pray instead.

The next Wednesday, Moss and Goodwin sat near me again as we ate and prepared to hear a “devotional” by the Rev. Sue Hudson of Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Aberdeen. Hudson and her husband, David, co-pastor that church.

“Are you still going without cigarettes,” I asked Goodwin.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“She has to, now,” Moss said.

“I found out I’m pregnant,” Goodwin said. “God made sure I stuck to my Lent obligation.”

The Rev. Hudson soon began speaking about a New Testament woman (Mark 14:3) who owned a bottle of perfume worth over a year’s wages. She broke the bottle and poured the perfume over Jesus’ head. His disciples said the perfume could have been sold and money given to the poor, but Jesus told them that the woman had come to anoint his body for burying.

The disciples were looking at surface level, but Jesus, looking at a deep level, “saw a gift and a prophetic sign,” Hudson said. “Perhaps it felt good to Jesus to be comforted before the desolation of the cross. This woman gave everything she had to the one who holds everything together in this world. Her sacrificial offering set a precedent to Christians who hold on to their spiritual gifts when they should be poured out.”

I left the Lenten lunch feeling inspired. I had enjoyed good food and the company of two new friends, one of whom is alive with the promise of a new child. And the speaker had directed my attention to the one who deserves attention during the pre-Easter season.

I’m beginning to like the idea of celebrating Lent.