Mardi Gras makes sense. Let loose. Enjoy yourself. One last run at it, but run at what? You wake up on Wednesday morning with strands of beads made by underpaid kids in China still around your neck. Maybe you ate too much King Cake and had a couple too many Hurricanes. "What? I'm supposed to clean up and go to church? Get ashes smudged on my forehead? Give up something for 40 days?" Over-doing it and then under-doing it doesn't add up. Binging has never done much good for anyone. "Not Exactly Holy" is a 40-day Lenten devotional for not-so-religious people, the skeptical, and the almost-trying. Lent traditionally calls on you to sacrifice something, like coffee. Maybe you'll give up sugary drinks. Sacrifice can also mean disrupting your patterns long enough to pay attention to what's been going on with yourself. The author asks a daily question and writes about his experiences, hoping to evoke a response from you. No pressure. No performance. No perfection. Just a chance for you to see your world a little differently and see what happens.
