Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lent is the season of fasting, and modern Christianity tends to take a broader look at Lenten fasting as being any form of discipline. This means that while some may choose to take something away (sugar, candy, alcohol, Facebook, etc), others may choose to take on something new (daily prayer/meditation, gratitude journaling, etc).

For the last several years my Lenten disciplines have been somewhat lacking, both in practice and in purpose. The idea with Lent is not to give something up for deprivation’s sake, but to make more space in your life for the divine. And I haven’t really had a good idea for that until now.

For the next 40 days and 6 Sundays (that’s your first fun church fact – Lent is 46 calendar days long) I will post one thing every day about my church, my spiritual life, or the Christian faith as I see it. I will do this publicly, which is what will make it hard. I come from a denomination that shies away from public pronouncements of faith. Episcopalians are not natural evangelists. Those who know me well may find my discomfort surprising because I tend to talk about my faith rather freely. Free does not mean easy however, and it is still difficult to be honest about my religion when I know so many of my friends don’t approve of it. Yet in recent months I’ve had several people approach me because they wanted to talk about faith with someone and didn’t feel comfortable doing so with others in their social group. So perhaps being obvious about my religion isn’t such a bad thing after all.

It can be difficult to make a case for Christianity when the loudest voices don’t represent my faith, and my faith doesn’t incline itself towards shouting. So this is me shouting. Every day. For forty (six) days.