The amount of time, energy and brainpower spent on useless, irrelevant, vain, and destructive pursuits is impossible to quantify, but without question is staggering.  Think of the trouble to which many people go to "try to beat the system" through financial manuevering or criminal activity.  How many of us wish we had back even a portion of the time spent "surfing the Internet."   Some folks go out of their way to think of and spread negative comments and impressions about others.  This last one, especially, is common in churches.

The local newspaper today has an article about a man who has devoted his life to discrediting, smearing, and spreading vindictive rumors about both Clintons, but is especially gearing up his efforts to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president.  This person is quoted in the paper as loudly declaring in a restaurant that Sen. Clinton (D-NY) "was sleeping with both of her law partners, Web Hubbell and Vince Foster.  And she's a lesbian, too."  He proclaimed that daughter Chelsea was fathered by someone other than the former president.

The person making these claims, according to the article, is a "perpetually indignant, single, 43 year-old," and "pretty much devotes his life to hating the Clintons and spreading wild, unsubstantiated allegations about them."  He lives off an inheritance, holds no job, and spends as much as ten hours a day engaged in this "hobby."  He hounds media personnel with emails and telephone calls, and even paid for recorded phone messages to flood potential primary voters in South Carolina with damaging accusations about Sen. Clinton.

If Sen. Clinton loses or is eliminated from the race, this guy plans to "take a vacation."  From what?

It's sad to see so much emptiness in the lives of people that they fill themselves -- and try to fill others -- with useless, pointless, distracting, or hurtful nonsense.  It's especially sad because they so often have no clue as to what they are doing or why.  Loneliness and isolation generally are the results, which likely is part of what they are trying to overcome.

Lent calls us to empty ourselves -- to take out the trash from our lives, so to speak -- and as we engage in spiritual focus and discipline, God will fill us in new, beneficial, positive and blessed ways.