Fasting?
I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life. ~ Henri Nouwen
“What are you giving up for Lent?” she asked me. I froze momentarily. I’m supposed to be a contemplative leader, but I hadn’t really grappled seriously with this more obvious expectation of the season. I answered, “I don’t know yet,” implying that some sort of sacrifice was forthcoming…but honestly I’m still not sure.
Do you like to fast? Does anyone? So why should we?
Is fasting just a dusty relic from the past, or does it continue to serve us in vital ways?
Fasting is perhaps the most traditional spiritual practice associated with Lent, the 40 days preceding Good Friday and Easter. And maybe that’s yet one more reason why the modern church tends to snub Lent altogether and rush helter-skelter toward resurrection: Fasting is a small death.
We have to acknowledge that western Christianity is still recovering from a haze of legalism that clouded the last couple centuries, and well, quite a few centuries before that. Where spirituality was often measured in terms of denial and abstinence and dourness. Where good Christians weren’t supposed to dance or play cards or go to movies…and of course never drink alcohol, the devil’s brew. As a result, it’s been easy to cast aside any practice that hints of self-control and call it old-fashioned and repressive.
There’s a reason why these are called spiritual “disciplines”…although I prefer the term practices, to get away from those very connotations. But the old term highlights the fact that it takes some intentionality and some motivation to lean into these kinds of activities that we’re not naturally drawn to.
But back to our question: Why fast?
Both in my first book Soul Space and again in Gravitas I offered my opinion that paying attention is the first of all spiritual practices. It is the point and purpose of all spiritual practices. Which invites another question: Why is paying attention so vital? The answer: Because without such attention-sparking actions, we simply fall asleep spiritually. We go on auto-pilot and coast through day after day, even doing lots of good activities, even spiritual activities, but without really seeing what’s real.
I would even say that spiritual dullness, spiritual sleep-walking, is more dangerous than outright sin. Or another way of phrasing it, spiritual dullness makes it easy to live out of our false selves, to sin. When the life flow of the Vine is constricted, we wind up with dry branches. Spiritual attentiveness is what puts us back in touch with the divine flow. And that’s where fasting (and a number of other tools) come into play.
Fasting is a disruptor. Consciously laying aside food or fiction or shows or alcohol or whatever—these abstinences create a vacuum of sorts. The things we fast from comfort us. Distract us. Entertain us. They aren’t bad things; they just make it easy to remain on auto-pilot. Fasting throws a monkey wrench into the works and slows us down. It invites us to pause and examine where we are, who we are, where we’re headed.
And that is the enduring gift of fasting. It has the potential to shake us awake. Or, of course, you can simply give up chocolate for 40 days and not pay attention to the larger Story. You can do the outer activity and neglect the inner invitation. Which would be rather useless.
There are other disruptors available to us as well, so fasting isn’t the only way to wake ourselves to this larger Story that Jesus called the Kingdom of God. What else has the power to kick us off auto-pilot?
growing the soul
For Lent, try one of the following practices to draw your attention more keenly to the divine flow…or choose fasting. And if you do fast from something, actually engage the wakefulness it offers. Whether you’re giving something up, or adding something in, the purpose of Lent is to pay attention.
serving the world
Compassion is the hallmark of being “woke” in the Kingdom sense, as we’ll see in next week’s post. So over Lent in particular, see if you can get more out of your needs and make yourself more available to the needs of those around you.
takeaway
Fasting only works if you actually wake up.