So I went to Ash Wednesday service and I must admit, I was a little uncomfortable at the thought of getting on public transportation with the ash sign of the cross on my forehead since I was taking the bus to church. Talk about feeling marked as a Christian. I think I was starting to believe the media hype and myth about San Francisco being an unfriendly place to Christians and other religious people, and didn't want to be the only one walking around marked as a Christian. From the things I've read and the way I've heard people talk, you'd think San Francisco was full of agnostics and aetheists.

But of course as is always the case with media hype, it's all a huge exagerration or some would put it more unkindly, one huge lie.

The first bus I got on was about 25% full of people with ash crosses on their forehead, some of whom I recognized from the service I'd been to. When I boarded the Muni train, there were other people on the train with ash crosses on their forehead. And when I was coming out of the store in my own neighborhood, I saw people walking about and in restaurants with ash crosses on their foreheads.

So contrary to popular beliefs about the city of Saint Francis by the Bay, Christianity is alive and well, at least on this Ash Wednesday in 2004.