New Desert

For Lent: "What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion. It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily. It shall become a pool, it shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy. It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water, and that the poor possess all things."
-Thomas Merton

Whole-Food, Plant-Based

The relationship between my body and spirit changed in such interesting ways during this fast.  I cannot adequately describe my physical joy (can joy be physical?) in response to the diet component to this fast.  I outlined the parameters below.  

The beginning was certainly difficult as I got used to it, especially drinking only water.  I interestingly found myself craving lamb (a meat I rarely eat) and grape juice.  The comical Biblical nature of these foods aside, I can only imagine I was craving the richest meat and the richest juice, unless I was really craving a passover meal due to my heightened devotion.  These craving soon subsided, however, and I found myself bounding out of bed at 7:00 a.m. ready to take the day and full of energy all day.  I did not have one headache during the entire fast, and my body seemed to take on new life in every way.  

I have since done a good deal of research about this whole-food, plant-based diet (euphamism for vegan - the word vegan makes people think you belong to a weird religion or something so I try to avoid it) and the medical findings are incredible.  Everything humans need (with the exception of one B vitamin, B-12 I believe) can be found in exactly the right quanitites in plants, and I honestly see no reason to ever eat meat, eggs, or dairy ever again.  I read The China Study and saw the documentary Forks Over Knives and have since put my whole family on this same diet (with some alterations - it's not the Daniel Fast entirely but it's very close).  I think everyone should try it - it's so exciting.  

Blogging Failure

I started this blog to keep track of my Lenten fast because I knew something important would happen.  My Greek Orthodox friend Cliff, upon hearing about my fast, gave me an excellent little devotional called The Lenten Spring by Thomas Hopko.  These are the opening words:

"The lenten spring shines forth,
the flower of repentance!
Let us cleanse ourselves from all evil,
crying out to the Giver of Light:
'Glory to you, O Lover of Man!'

"The Church welcomes the lenten spring with a spirit of exultation.  She greets the time of repentence with the extectancy and ehtusiasm of a child entering into a new and exciting experience.  The tone of the church services is one of brightness and light.  The words are a clarion call to a spiritual contest, the invitation to a spiritual adventure, the summons to a spiritual feat.  There is nothing gloomy here, nothing dark or remorseful, masochistic or morbid, anxious or hysterical, pietistic or sentimental."

This groundwork is essential.  People of God are urged into reflection and repentence by joy, but I am amazed by how easily darker language creeps into the endeavor to make it seem like slavery.  Especially now that I write this over a month after Easter, I agree the word to describe the lenten spring is exultation.  However, the time was not without gloom, darkness, remorse, anxiety, sentiment, and even an episode or two of hysterics.

I once read about a Sufi master who taught, "One has achieved wisdom when he experiences immediate joy when sudden disappointment hits."  I'm still working on the "immediate" part, but I learned this lenten spring that sorrow is, in the long run, an occasion for greater joy.

I couldn't keep up with this blog because there was too much to write about in too little time.  I think I will still be trying to figure out my lenten spring of 2011 ten years from now.  To write about it contemporaneously was impossible - blogs are so up-to-the-minute.  I couldn't serve as both journalist and sojourner, at least not at the same time.  I decided the latter was more important.

I began with a total fast (only water) at sundown the night before Ash Wednesday.  Not 40 minutes after dark, I had already had two powerful "chance" encounters with old friends (in the middle of Hollywood Blvd, no less) and been forced to dredge up love and forgiveness that was humbling and convicting.  That first week, old and forgotten friends flooded into my life through the floorboards, taking me on a Scrooge-esque tour of my life's friendships and allowing me to re-open sealed chambers so the Holy Spirit could rush through them with a swift, cleansing breeze.  It was frankly rather shocking, and Hopko's words "invitation to a spiritual adventure" began to ring loud and clear.

It was a spiritual birthday to say the least - I celebrated leaving one age for a new one, complete with new temptations, greater responsibilities, and greater power to serve and love the Lord than I ever imagined.  I hope I will be able to re-cap the experience so none of it will be lost.

Day One - Ash Wednesday and the Body

Day One - it officially begins!  

In response to Anna's last e-mail, I am reflective about the opportunity Lenten and fasting provides for us to think about the theology of the body.  Lent is all about the miracle of the Incarnation, and about how Jesus was able to overcome bodily affliction after bodily affliction through his many healing miracles and, ultimately, the resurrection of his own body after death.  What are we not understanding about our bodies if we don't see their worth the way he did?  Jesus probably could have made a much more spectacular display with his return if he'd boomed over all the earth in a loud voice and turned the sky bright orange and made his presence known to everyone, but even this - the most spectacular miracle to have ever been performed in the history of the universe - was done in and with a frail, pink, weak little human body. 

We'll get to a pretty neat passage in Daniel in a few days that talks about one of the visions Daniel has in a dream about the different kingdoms that will come to reign on earth.  He sees a series of beasts - 4 of them - and one is more horrifying than the last in fierceness, power, ugliness, and violence.  And then in Daniel's dream a final being appears: just a normal Son of Man, coming in peace.  And of course it is the kingdom symbolized in the body of a man that will never pass away.  

I have been preparing for about two or three weeks now, and I am so excited it's beginning. I am kicking things off with an absolute fast that I began at sundown last night - just water for 24 hours.  

The traditional "fasting" pains are setting in now - it's 12:25 p.m. and my body is wanting some lunch.  I'm a little headachey and weak. But as I sit here and think about Jesus' body, I'm touched by a profound holy paradox - Jesus demonstrated unprecedented power and might by coming to live in such a weak and fragile shape.  My body feels so weak and fragile right now - it's only been about 18 hours since I've eaten and I'm getting edgy.  But through embracing and understanding weakness, we invite God to act miraculously.  God loves to give power to the powerless.  I am thankful for the powerlessness of my body today as I anticipate the new ways it will grow the house the Lord in the next 6 weeks.  

Heading to the 7:30 Ash Wednesday service at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in the Palisades tonight.  So looking forward to the silent time of prayer and joining together with the body of Christ to begin this wonderful season. 

I pray for blessings upon everyone joining in some sort of fast today.  What exciting things await.  

A "Housesitter Approach" to Our Bodies

Some thoughts from Anna:


So far, I have been training for the fast by avoiding most things non-plantish. What a difference in two things:

#1: My cravings! Gone! I had a bite of homemade apple pie last night and regretted it immediately not because the pie wasn't tasty, but because my stomach grumbled about it the whole night and my taste buds recoiled with the exclamation, "No more! Please! We'll DIE of sweetness!"

How convenient that our appetites begin to correspond to our ideals, once we take the step and begin a new lifestyle. It reminds me of faith, in that sense. You have to step out of your usual rut and embrace something new. There is a withdrawal period, where all you can think consuming are the things you shouldn't. Eventually, your palate adjusts like a connoisseur. You train yourself to appreciate what once seemed a subtlety as a vibrancy of flavor. Ephesians 5 talks about foolish talk and course jesting being far from us, since it is unfitting for children of light. Yet, how often do we indulge in that one witty come-back with as little thought as that invested in a bag of Doritos? I pray for there to be something distinctly natural and wholesome about what that passes through my mouth this lent. Like Jesus said, it is what comes out that defiles you. That means words. May our words be seasoned with the myriad flavors of God, and may we fill up on the diverse banquet He sets before us in Who He is. May His presence pour into our souls like water, cleansing us with new life and purity, filling us to overflowing.

#2 My attitude toward my body. It's high time I started treating my body like it really is: a holy place that God chooses to inhabit. I remember someone at a yoga studio saying, "Your body is your home. You are in it for the rest of your life. Treat it well. Show love and care for it. Honor it. It will serve you as well as you serve it." That was such a foreign concept to me, and it needs to be preached from the pulpit. Until that yoga session, I viewed my body as the "flesh," against which I am to declare war while battling to squeeze into next summer's bathing suit. It occurs to me now that the flesh Paul is talking about is really not the material thing itself. That meat and boney part of me is good. It can't help the law of entropy or disease. The body should NOT be seen as the source for temptation, although it certainly furnishes the conditions. Eve ate out of desire for unnatural power and knowledge, not out of physical hunger. My body is just a house leased by a mostly irresponsible tenant, my will. My body is already subjected to my will. The problem is, my will behaves more like a bad housesitter than an owner. God bought it and arranged for me to have a free lease; now its up to me to take full responsibility and treat it like He would want me to. Gratitude ought to be my motivation for one of the best gifts He has entrusted to me. "You are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body."

Does God love our bodies? If so, how can we practice loving our bodies the way God would want us to?

Anna

Getting Ready

Anna and I have had many conversations about the importance of preparing for a fast.  People always have good intentions when they wake up and decide, "I think I'll fast today," but in the past few months I've found that I get ten times more out of it if I plan at least a few days in advance.  This allows me to get both my spirit and my body ready.  I can start toning down my food intake so I'm not shocked and starving when I first begin, and, more importantly, I can start asking the Lord what HE might want to communicate to me.  I always go into a fast with some sort of goal or prayer, and every time I re-learn that fasting is really about listening. 

 So to get my body ready, I am stocking my kitchen (this is from a trip to the farmers' market in Camarillo) and experimenting with some vegan recipes: 

Today I made some kale chips:

I read a lot of health blogs, and kale chips are a food item I've always thought was for crazy vegans.  But I tried these, and they were delish.  I preheated the oven to 350, washed the kale and tore it into chip-sized pieces (bigger than you'd think), and tossed them with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  I followed a recipe that said to bake them for 35 minutes, but I took them out at 25 and they were totally toasted.  15 minutes did the trick on my next batch. 

To do the more important preparing to get me mentally and spiritually ready, I am reading Richard Foster's book Celebration of Discipline.  I went through this book in a small group last year, and I am thrilled to be rereading it.  It's such a good one.  Pick it up if you don't have a copy.  I'm sure I'll include selections from my reading as I make it through the fast. 

The Fast: What We Are and Aren't Eating

This is from Daniel 1:12-16 - "Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants [Daniel and his three buddies] in accordance with what you see...At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead."

The word "vegetables" is used here, but it originally read "pulse," which means anything that grows from a seed. So this fast includes anything in that genre, and nothing but water to drink. 

This includes:

All Fruits

All Vegetables

All Whole Grains

All Nuts and Seeds

All Legumes

All Quality Oils from Plants


This excludes:

All Meat and Animal Products (that means eggs)

All Dairy

All Sweeteners - even if they come from plants (that means honey, maple syrup, molassas, cane juice, stevia, and any sugar deriviative or synthetic sweetener). The only sweet items allowed are actual whole pieces of fruit.

Leavened Bread

Anything Refined or Processed (this is sometimes called "enriched" food on labels)

Anything Deep Fried

All Solid Fats (shortening, margerine, Earth Balance, etc.)

Any Beverage That Isn't Water (including coffee, tea, and water flavored in any way)

Our Plan of Action - Scripture Reading

Dearest Anna,

This could very well be too ambitious, especially considering your travel schedule, but this could work for our readings. What if we read one chapter every day from four different books, starting with Daniel (12 days), then the Song of Solomon (8 days), then Hebrews (13 days), then Mark (16 days). That actually totals 49 days, but I figure we can squeeze in a little more of the Gospel of Mark as we get closer to Easter - Mark is the shortest gospel and doubling up chapters for the last few days would be easy. Here is my thinking:

1. Daniel - I already explained this above, but I think it would be great to get to know Daniel and his prayers and his relationship with God as we begin his fast.

2. The Song of Solomon - It seems logical to make this portion of the fast something personal. I think regardless of relationship status it could be fulfilling for both of us to spend 8 of our fasting days thinking about the romance issue - it's on both of our minds a lot I know, and I think we would both benefit and be grateful for revelation, clarity, and greater faith on the topic. Let's spend those 8 days figuring out what God has in mind for our marriages.

3. Hebrews - I haven't spent much time at all with Hebrews in my life, and I think 13 days in this book would be a wonderful time for study to see what God will reveal without any other agenda or petition from us. I want to read this book to see what God will do and reveal when I just give Him a blank slate to work with.

4. Mark - leading up to Easter, I would love to spend the end of our fast focusing on Christ's story on earth and on his sacrifice, on his relationships with other people, on his prayers, and on his own fasting. I pray that this phase of the fast will teach us more about Christ the man, the we could become more like him and grow to love Him more than ever before. And then - hooray! We will celebrate his everlasting life and resurrection on Easter!

We should use the outline you put in your last e-mail as our guide for reading and contemplation as we make it through these books. In all of it, we seek:

1) stronger prayer

2) God's guidance

3) humility before God

4) greater concern for God's work

5) sensitivity to and willingness to act in response to the needs of others

6) resistance to temptation and dedication to God

7) the ability to express love and worship to God in new, stronger ways.

Those things are so good. I am going to print out that outline to keep in my Bible so I can review them before and after each daily reading.

Okay, that is all for now, but I am sure I will have more and more to say.

I love you so! Thank you for your prayers that my time with the Lord would be fruitfull and blessed - it CERTAINLY has been!

Love,

Catherine

The Story Behind the Daniel Fast

Anna,

Since we are doing a fast from Daniel, I just read through a few chapters of the book to put it in context. Here's how the fast came to be:

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, took over Jerusalem in about 539 BC. Shortly thereafter, he wanted to take the best and brightest of the youth of his kingdom to train and educate to work for him. Among the young men chosen was Daniel, along with a few others from Judah. All of these specially chosen students were to eat food specially set aside for them from the King's table. Daniel and the other Jewish students didn't want eat the "defiled" royal food, so he asked his guard if he could have just vegetables and water. The guard knew he would be in trouble if the Jewish kids were for some reason skinnier and in poorer health than the rest (which he assumed would happen if he didn't eat the king's food), so David told him to let them test the vegetable-and-water diet for ten days.

"At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds." Then these four Jewish guys who had been fasting were ten times better than the other students, and were therefore taken into the King's service professionally.

I think this story makes this particular fast even more perfect for us, Anna. If you think about it, he was first in a selection program for education and then after that in a very competitive selection process for a job. Anna that's exactly where we are! It was during those trials of Daniel's life that he followed this fast to honor God, and because of it was placed in the position of influence that allowed a lifetime of visions and miracles to happen in the kingdom. This fast itself is a fast for preparation for vocation and calling. Go glance through the first few chapters of Daniel. I just read through chapter 10 and I am amazed.

Daniel fasts a second time at the beginning of chapter 10, this time because he is in a state of mourning. In book 9 he says a long prayer in which he expresses humility, worship, confession and petition. The period of Lent is meant for that, sort of. I've been reading about it today, and most church traditions seem to agree that during lent we are supposed to mourn our sinfulness, acquaint ourselves more fully with Christ's sacrifice, and get ready to celebrate Christ's resurrection like crazy on Easter. The first 10 chapters of Daniel also contain three visions about different kingdoms that rise and fall before Christ comes to establish His everlasting kingdom - which is also great preparation for Easter in a more historical sense.

Love,

Catherine

You Have Not Traveled This Way Before

Worship through Fasting and Prayer

“'You have not traveled this way before.' Joshua told the people, 'Ritually consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will perform miraculous deeds among you.'"

Joshua 3:4b-5

Dear Catherine,

Here are some thoughts to contemplate about this 45 days of consecration. Although some of this applies to refraining from meals altogether, I hope these thoughts can help us to make the most of this period of the Daniel fast.

Before I start, let me say… I will be in China March 15-April 1^st, so I will have to be flexible in my fasting since I don’t know what will be served. When I have a choice, I want to limit myself to a plant-based diet and water. As a guest, I will need to be sensitive to cultural expectations.

I hope we can communicate through email, though I can’t guarantee it. It will mean a lot to me to know you are praying for our trip during the fast and that we are reading the same passages of Scripture together. How should we divide up Hebrews? (13 chapters, 45 days)

Reasons for Fasting

More than what we abstain from, we commit to focus on the spiritual purposes. In reading through some material, it seems best for me to approach this time for the purpose of worship, with fasting and prayer as my primary means. I decided this after reviewing the following list of reasons:

Reasons to Fast Include: (from Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney)

1. Strengthening prayer

Fasting “hoists the sails of the soul in hopes of experiencing the gracious wind of God’s spirit.”

2. Seeking God’s guidance
3. Humbling oneself before God

Fast not to be noticed by others unless absolutely necessary.

4. Expressing concern for God’s work

Fasting draws us “into a more complete realization of the purposes of the Lord in our life, church, community, and nation.”

5. Ministering to the needs of others
1. Fasting can be used as a time dedicated specifically to meeting others’ needs
2. Fasting can help me empathize with those whose needs are unmet
6. Overcoming temptation and dedicating oneself to God
1. Fasting is a way to express to God that He is my greatest pleasure, my portion, my priority in everything, even food.
2. Thoughts of food will prompt not just praises, but questions of God and to inquire what He might desire of us in this season of our lives.
7. Expressing love and worship of God

Do any of these jump out to you?

Fasting as Worship

This last reason jumped out to me. Like I said, I’ve always admired Anna, the prophetess, in Luke 2 who, “never left the temple but worshiped day and night with fasting and prayer.” Her example encompasses all of the listed reasons. Other things about her to note:

-She was a woman of Scripture

-She was a gifted communicator who spoke about Jesus to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem

-She approached the infant Jesus and immediately recognized him. I want to be able to recognize the presence of God as He reveals himself to me.

-She gave thanks to God constantly

-Worship was her primary reason for fasting and prayer

Another aspect of fasting, as we mentioned, is to prepare us for the feast of Easter Sunday in which we express our deep gratitude for receiving His sacrifice. I so look forward to the way this may prepare our hearts for that day!

Any thoughts you want to add to this?

Love to you!

Anna