Guest blogger Becca Hartman received her B.A. from Northwestern University where she studied Philosophy and Religion. Before joining IFYC, she interned with the African Religious Health Assets Program at the University of Cape Town to map the impact of Faith-Based Organizations on the public health needs of Sub-Saharan Africa.

I’m one of those freedom-loving American Baptists. You know, freedom of conscience, freedom to encounter the divine directly, freedom to read scripture and interpret for myself with the appropriate tools, freedom to worship what, when, and as I choose. My sense of this radical freedom is rooted in the boundless love and grace of God and of the Jesus who came to loose us from the many shackles we (willfully or forcefully) sport.

I am also free to envy. I work at the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based international nonprofit organization that is building a global movement of young leaders committed to the ideal of religious pluralism. That means that I have the good fortune of working with people from different religious and philosophic traditions. It was first in school at Northwestern University, then abroad in South Africa that I really got involved with interfaith work. The beauty of religions’ practices, the depth of their stories, the history of their rituals, the vibrancy of their communities, and the truth in their teachings - they have always captivated me. They are a testament to the abundance of the divine that I seek to follow.

But I admit that since I first encountered religious diversity I have been covetous of my neighbor’s religious practices.

When I studied in Durban, South Africa, I lived with a wonderful, proudly Christian Zulu family. I have rarely felt the spirit in the way that I did in their house church just a couple of doors down, surrounded by singing voices that raised my consciousness to another plane altogether. And next door to ‘our’ home was an older Muslim couple. I had the blessing of living with my host family during Ramadan, which in South Africa is boiling hot with many daylight hours. Every day this family would go to work and return, all the time refraining from food and water. And every evening after sunset, when I caught them at just the right time, hanging clothes in the back of the house, they would offer me fresh veggie samosas to share in the breaking of their fast. As the sun was setting over a massive hillside of RDP government houses, the wind would pick up, and we would flip through pictures of our families together.

The next time I encountered Ramadan so fully was my first year at IFYC. I observed my Muslim colleagues (friends, really) refraining from water and food and ill-thoughts from sun-up to sun-down. Inspired by their devotion and the shared practice among Muslims around the world, I decided that I would focus on this practice and revitalize the tradition of fasting within mystical and some of mainstream Christianity. I decided to fast for Lent last year.

Growing up my family always ‘took on’ something for Lent, a practice that I find meaningful, which is a way of living from a place of abundance. It is with a heart of gratitude that we would take on extra volunteering, vow to acknowledge and thank someone new every day, write a letter to loved ones, etc. This Lent, I wanted a different practice to jolt me from my comfortable ways and to live into a new insight. Yet in my emulation of my Muslim colleagues, I was missing a vital part of the devotional experience. During Ramadan, Muslims break the fast at sundown and celebrate with prayer and a shared meal. In my attempts to ‘go-it-alone’, I was depriving myself of the joy that comes in relationships and communal celebration. Lent didn’t go so well last year.

This year, I am grateful for the participation of many friends at IFYC. Eight of us – varieties of Christians, Muslims and Jews - are taking a day of the week and fasting that day, according to each one’s chosen practice. Together we are fasting throughout Lent, journaling our thoughts and experiences in a collective book, and occasionally breaking the fast together. In the coming weeks, they will share their thoughts with you as well as we each reflect on what this interfaith Lent means to us. Thus far I am simply grateful for this community.