We may not not need Verlyn Klinkenborg to remind us that Americans are not a naturally ascetic people.Then again, absent asceticism, perhaps we do.
In any event, it is more his reminder of the Lenten opportunity as one of fasting in wilderness that is arresting.
"In the ancestral stories of nearly every culture, wisdom comes from the bare places, from deserts and dry mountains. The season of Lent itself is based on a 'wilderness' — the one in which Jesus fasted for 40 days after his baptism."
"It’s common to read this story and others like it as though the wilderness were little more than a blank backdrop. I read it a different way. Wisdom comes from the bare places because they force humility upon us. In these Lenten places, where life thrives on almost nothing, we can see clearly how large a shadow modern life and consumption cast upon the earth.... Perhaps it might be a season in which to learn the value of abstention and to consider how to let the bare places flourish, or even simply to exist."
It is in wilderness without and within that we are most likely to find the commonality of living and dying, hope and hopelessness.