Nobody likes the “N” word.

Each week I write a little “Word of Preparation” for our Sunday bulletin. The idea is to help us all get pointed in roughly the same direction as we prepare for worship. This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent and, since Lent is for all of us, I thought I’d share my prep word with you. – Lent is the forty day period set aside by the church during which the faithful prepare for Easter, and the rest of us recover from Mardi Gras.

I haven’t forgotten that I had promised this post would deal with the reasons I do not sing the national anthem. That post is coming soon. And this year I'm going to give up promise-breaking for Lent. Honest, I really am, cross my heart.

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By the time I was two I had learned to say “no”. I wonder how old I will be when I’ve finally learned to hear it.

It’s a hard word, perhaps the hardest, and yet I believe most of us would grudgingly admit that “no” has blessed our lives like few other words we’ve known.

When I first wanted to go out all by myself, my mother said “no”. When I wanted to go to school without brushing my teeth, my mother said “no”. And when, as a child, I wanted a BB gun, a crossbow, a machete and a rattle snake, despite my promises to be ever so careful, my mother said “no”. And, as a consequence, I have never been run over by a car, I still have all of my fingers, both of my eyes, and most of my teeth. And I have never had occasion to die from, or survive, a venomous snakebite.

Yes, part of the secret of my happy life has been learning to take “no” for an answer. And learning to say “no” to my friends, my spouse, my parents, my children, my boss, and myself.

A lot of people don’t like Lent because they think it’s mostly about “no”, and they think “no” is a bad word. Well, they’re right about Lent, but they’re wrong about “no”.

Lent is really just a little refresher course for all of us. We’re learning to say “yes” to “no”.