Giving up something for Lent is one time honored choice for a spiritual discipline during the forty day journey to Easter. So is taking something on. This year I’ve decided to take on rather than give up … and here’s a reprise of the Huffington Post piece I wrote explaining how I made that choice.

According to my Facebook feed this morning lots of my colleagues have decided that giving up Trump for Lent is going to be part of their spiritual discipline. And I’m not here to judge that decision.

But for me the option of giving up Trump for Lent brings me face to face with the fact that having that option is emblematic of my privilege as an upper-middle class, over-educated, white clergy woman.

It is not an option my undocumented neighbors have as they worry about the knock on the door with a deportation order. It is not an option my African American neighbors have as they wait for the next incident of racial profiling. It is not an option for my transgender teen parishioner as she makes daily decisions about whether it’s safe to use a public bathroom. It is not an option for families who depend on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, for women who depend on Planned Parenthood for healthcare or for soldiers who depend on their Commander in Chief to defend — not dismantle — the Constitution they swear to risk their lives for.

What is at stake in this nation and in this world is too grave for me to opt out — even for forty days — from my foundational baptismal promise to resist the forces of evil and to respect the dignity of every human being.

So instead of giving up Trump for Lent I’m taking on the Daily Ritual for Sacred Resistance we developed at All Saints Church in Pasadena.

I’m taking on a Discipline of Sacred Resistance to the systemic evils that oppress and marginalize any member of our human family – including but not limited to racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Join me … if you feel so called … and let’s see what kind of good trouble we can get into for the next 40 days. And the next. And the next. Until there’s no good trouble left to get into — until there is only the good news that liberty and justice for all has become a reality we live, not just a pledge we make.

Today’s Daily Lenten Meditation is by Susan Russell, our Senior Associate for Communication. Watch for daily postings from All Saints Church as we take the forty day journey to Easter together.