For behold, you look for truth deep within me, and will make me understand wisdom secretly. Psalm 51

Preparation: Lent 2016

I do enjoy having a blog that absolutely nobody reads - it's like a journal. I've been keeping this one since my first Lenten fast in 2011, the 6 weeks that completely transformed my life.  It was my first experience with the Daniel Fast, which brought about my transition to truly perfect health, and my first awakening to the meaning of Easter.  I have not been the same in body or spirit since then.

I haven't ever been able to replicate that first Lenten experience, but I haven't needed to because the result of the first time has not wavered for me in the least.  But fasting always has something to offer, I think, and I am excited to see what it will be this year.

As I wrote on this blog a few years ago, Lenten fasting is about placing Easter at the center of your daily life.  We fast to shift our focus from the day-to-day needs that overcome us to the miracle of Christ.  We properly order our pleasure and our restraint and live in peace with our bodies and our selves.  What a joy.

Because I am now way more Anglican than I have been in years past, I am excited to go through this Lent with the Episcopal church in Koreatown.  I think it'll be lots of fun.

From the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer:

"I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy word.  And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer."

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.

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.