Lent 2013

Blogging about my Lenten fasts never works out, but I like the little snippets I've written down here.  Here I am, year three, and the power of Lent 2011 is still with me.  I've stayed a vegan ever since then, now as passionately as ever, and the whole family has followed suit.  It's wonderful.

This year for Lent, with no preparation at all, I decided to do a semi-Daniel fast again.  The vegan part is just normal everyday eating for me, but I've cut out 100% of sweets, which is NOT normal.  My grad school diet is, not exaggerating, about 15% cookies.  Of course I feel great since I cut them out.

I'm adding occasional homemade fresh vegetable juice, and I allow myself cups of coffee when academic deadlines demand the caffeine, but I use it more as a drug than a pleasure (I've sort of lost my taste for it).

I've had one weird craving so far, and that was a ham sandwich with mayonnaise, which I haven't eaten in many years, even before I became a vegan.  I think sometimes I just long for really normal American food because it would be so easy to find.  Fluffy white spongey bread, deli meat, mayo, a little lettuce, yellow mustard.  I'll never stop being a vegan because my health is perfect, but simplicity and convenience when it comes to food might be something I always miss.

Grad school has been a subdued spiritual time for me.  There was a flurry of activity and change before I got here, but it has been extremely muted for my whole time at Yale.  There has been so much going on with my intellect and my emotions that I've definitely been aware of my spiritual growth, but it's looked very different from my pre-Yale life.  I am starting to see glimmers of a return of my prayer life and my desire to praise God and talk to Him in my journal, but they are sparse.  I sense a big change when I graduate in a few months, plan the wedding, get married, and start my Vita Nuova as Mrs. Illingworth.

So the goals for the fast are:

1) Finish my masters degree with some degree of success
2)  Get ready for the powerful winds of change that are about to blow through my life
3) Start to think about what virtue looks like as a married person, although I'll really focus on this over the summer as I prepare for the wedding.
4) Reflect on the many ways I have learned to be loving to people who have nothing to do with Christianity.  Yale has brought an incredible diversity of people into my life, and I cherish the relationships I have with them.  It has been an exceptionally positive experience, but I look forward to think about it more to see what's going on in these loves I have with people who are so different from me.
5) Really make the most out of my last few months at Yale.  I love this place so much, and I want to see how I can draw the best of it into my next life chapter.
6) Tune myself to listening to the Lord as he prompts me with prayer and praise.  Maybe I could even start occasionally going to church again sometime in the next few months?  I think I have been to church four times in the past two years.  I am interested to see where that goes.

That's all that's on my mind right now, and it's time to get back to a paper that is half done that is due in 8 hours.  Miles to go before I sleep, and Miles to go before I sleep.

Horrible Beginning

My sixth consecutive day sick in bed is closing as I type.  Last Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, I fell suddenly extremely ill with the Influenza A virus (the same thing as Swine Flu, Bird Flu, H1N1) and pneumonia in one of my lungs.  I had a 103 degree fever for four full days, fainted one time, took antibiotics that really upset my stomach, and had incredible difficulty breathing that is just now disappearing.  Whew.  

Needless to say, the opening moments of my Lenten season have been a far cry from the dazzling beginning to last year's fast.  I knew this year would be different, but this has been so disappointing.  I didn't even get to go to church on Ash Wednesday, and I had to break my fast a few times to drink apple juice when I couldn't stomach any other form of nourishment.  I am going to try to go to class tomorrow for the first time in a week - here's hoping I don't pass out.  

Lent is a time of forgetting (or at least lessening) your physical needs so you can focus on your spiritual ones.  Pneumonia is a time of total consumption with your physical needs to the total exclusion of all others.  This whole thing has begun backward, and I've missed one of my six precious weeks of Lent.  

But perhaps there's a lesson there.  When we fast, one of the most important things to remember is that it's about letting go.  Fasting forces you to examine your motives pretty closely, and being totally physically and mentally leveled for a full week has cleared the decks in my thinking.  I think I otherwise might have gone into this fast the same way I did last year - with a long list of "goals" and a structured format for all the prayers I wanted to say while I longed for a trip to the frozen yogurt shop.  

This is not about the blessings but the Blesser, although the blessings are numerous.  When Jesus tells people not to look miserable when they're fasting, he's saying that you can choose how rewarding you want this experience to be.  If you look miserable to win the approval of others, you've already gotten your reward, which will be their silent applause.  I take that to mean that you can also go into this hoping for spiritual direction, more discipline about eating well, and getting in better touch with temptation - and those will be your rewards, too.  But you can also go into this with abandon, desiring nothing but God himself.  That's always an option we can choose, in everything we do.  Somehow feeling utterly miserable for a week has made me cheer and delight in this option, and all other hopes for Lent are lost.  This season, I want not his, but Him.  

So here goes.  Late start - or maybe not.  

Game Plan and Preparation

One week from today is Ash Wednesday, and I am so looking forward to it.  It seems strange to be "really excited about Lent," but since I am a divinity school student I can say those kinds of things around my friends and it isn't too weird.

Since my whole life is about the academic study of God and Christianity, I think it's important to steer clear of anything really "formal" and try to tap into another method of communicating closely with the Lord.  I don't think I can handle any more reading right now (as I write this I am postponing my planning for a lecture on St. Francis that I have to give tomorrow), so I want to try to write one sonnet a day.  It'll be creative, it will make me really comfortable thinking in verse, and hopefully will give some structure (but a creative structure) to my prayer life.  46 sonnets in 46 days is a tall order, and I am guessing 43 of them will be truly terrible, but it's my offering.

I also can't wait to start the Daniel Fast again.  I can't wait for that rush of health to hit me when the day begins, for the energy, that extra clean feeling - and a good reason to say no to a lot of things I shouldn't be eating anyway.

Dear Jesus, I pray you would begin to work in the hearts of all those who prepare themselves for Lenten observance.  Rush to their care, and grant them the intimacy with you they crave.  Teach each one what you would have them learn this season, and help us all to prepare for your glorious resurrection to occur anew in our hearts on Easter morning.  Amen.

Lent 2012

Just about a month until Lent begins again, and I am planning.

I have kept up with my whole food vegan diet since Lent last year - I cheat a few times a month, but the spiritual and physical heath that I experienced during Lent was too good to give up last Easter.

I think I will go back to the Daniel Fast of last year.  I was worried it wouldn't be enough of a change from my normal diet since I've remained a vegan, but the total abstinence from sweeteners, any beverages except water, leavened breads and solid fats will be a pretty big change.  I also think I will do a total fast once or twice a week - maybe on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Instead of just not eating certain things to observe Lent, this year I'd like to add something that I'll do during this season.  I've thought about gathering with friends to have a Bible Study, or that I would undertake a reading assignment on my own.

It was suggested by a friend of mine that a group of us gather to say the Daily Office. It consists of Morning Prayer, Daily Mass, Evening Prayer/Vespers, and Night Prayer.  It would be challenging schedule-wise, but would certainly make for a well ordered Lent.  Something to consider.

I am beginning to pray about this now.  Life is so different this Lenten season than it was last year, and as much as I would like to repeat my 2011 experience exactly, I know there are new ways to grow that are appropriate to my new life.  One of the first lessons I learned last year was that my specific expectations are somewhat irrelevant; fasting makes us attentive to that which God wants to do in our hearts, and we needn't wait long to have these desires revealed.

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.