February 25, 2009

Ash Wednesday

During my senior year of high school, a friend and I decided to fast on Ash Wednesday. To me it seemed like no big deal. We'll just be hungry and tomorrow we'll have breakfast and that will be the end of it. Everything went according to plan - we didn't meet for breakfast that day, we attended the school's chapel service and got the ashy smudge on our foreheads, we didn't eat. Well, sort of. At around 4 o'clock, my friend went through quite an ordeal. She'd begun to feel lightheaded and woozy, and decided that she'd better eat a few Triscuts. After doing so, she was wracked with guilt - so much so that she called her mom in tears, confessing that she'd broken her fast.

Now, we all had a good laugh about it the next day over breakfast (which is what we were officially doing: breaking our fast). It seemed much less grave after we'd eaten our waffles. Why was she so torn up over a few Triscuts?

The further I get from that incident, the more I realize that my friend was delving deeper into the discipline of fasting than I was. I secretly patted myself on the back for outlasting her that day. "Look at me," I thought, "I can handle this fast. Not a big deal at all." But while I may have physically fasted, I certainly did not spiritually fast.

So what is fasting? Why do we do it? And does God really care about clandestine Triscuts in the afternoon?

Christian fasting, particularly Lenten fasting, is rooted in Christ's fasting in the wilderness after his baptism. Those 40 days and 40 nights are refleclected in our 40-day (not including Sundays) period of Lent, where Christians often "give up" something in rememberance of Jesus' sacrifice. I've found that often, at least for me, my choices of what to "give up" for Lent revolve around my own self-betterment. What vices should I abandon for 40 days? And is my willpower strong enough? Often it is my will, not the Lord's will. And furthermore, when I am tempted by those vices, I look once again to my own ability to resist them.

While considering these things, I turned to the book Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner. Winner, a former Orthodox Jew-turned-Christian, writes about Jewish spiritual disciplines and their redemption and place in Christianity. Winner shares a story similar to that of my high school friend. Once, while in college, she ate a salami sandwich during the Fast of Esther, one of the required Orthodox Jewish fasts. Later, she asked a rabbi about whether or not God cared about this sandwich. His response:

"When you are fasting," he said, "and you feel hungry, you are to remember that you are really hungry for God."

And that, I realized, is what I missed during that first Ash Wednesday fast in high school. I was hungry, and I let my willpower carry me through. My friend was hungry, ate, and realized that she allowed her body to rule over what her spirit told her. She recognized her hunger for God, where I just recognized my awesomeness. Mudhouse Sabbath again:

"Rabbi M's words make it clear that, like the liturgy, the fast accomplishes a repositioning. When I am sated, it is easy to feel independent. When I am hungry, it is possible to remember where my dependence lies."

Today, I'm fasting again. I'm trying to look at it not as a battle of my will vs. my stomach. I'm trying to see it as my hunger for God, made corporal.

2 comments:

  1. isn't that a great book?

    (i'm realizing that your updates haven't been posting to my dashboard....booo)

    you are such a beautiful buppy.

    ReplyDelete