Week One, Year Four

What a wonderful first week!  So far this fast is doing everything I had hoped - it is restoring my health, and my spirits have been wonderfully high since I started on Ash Wednesday.  I have been doing some wonderful reading, particularly having to do with the depression I've been feeling since Greer left.  It's one of those things where the first step is the hardest part, but fasting, reading, exercising, and otherwise choosing only healthy habits have all paid off bigtime.  I had friends visiting me all week (friends from Yale who are about to move to Waco to start teaching at Baylor), and it was a real pleasure to be with friends who know me well.

I have a read a lot of articles online lately about incorrect Lenten fasting (go to divinity school and your Facebook feed will light up on Ash Wednesday).  A lot of articles have argued that one shouldn't partake of fasts that will deliver health benefits because it is distracting from the "real reason" to observe Lent.  I completely disagree.  First of all, there is substantially more motivation to obey an eating plan when it's part of a fast.  I have tried to do the Daniel Fast purely for health benefits, and I always fail.  I crave the special proximity to God that I feel during Lent, and that is why I can obey these extreme rules.  Am I doing this as some sort of "payment" to God to buy his attention and favor?  Absolutely not.  Fasting puts Easter at the center of the rhythms of my day, and that is the whole purpose.  It doesn't do anything for God for me to not eat meat and candy. 

The health benefits are a huge part of it also.  When I do this fast, I have this feeling of physical lightness or cleanness, and it makes me think less about my body.  My choices are simple every day, I have only fruits and vegetables to choose, and I feel wonderful. 

It has been an excellent first week, filled with calmness, good sleep, and peace.  Onward to Easter.

Lent 2014

Year four of Lenten observance.

I'm in Texas this time, living alone, working at Baylor, waiting to see once again what the Daniel Fast holds for me.  It is just now sundown on the night before Ash Wednesday.  Only water until sundown tomorrow, then just vegetables until Easter.

Dear Lord, my need of you is great this year.  My husband is deployed to Afghanistan, the road beyond that is unclear.  This year has been full of feasting.  The past few weeks have been a famine.  Restore it now with a holy fast.

Amen.