Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
“Everyone has issues with food,” a fellow priest once asserted in conversation. My immediate internal reaction was, “Well, I don’t!”
That was decades ago. In retrospect, I was not so much in denial as I was lacking in self-awareness. Back then, I thought that because I didn’t have a “weight problem,” I didn’t have any “issues” with food. But I know myself a bit better now. Recently, while reflecting on the discipline of fasting, I was reminded of the summer I turned twenty-three.
I spent the summer of 1993 between semesters at Yale Divinity School undertaking intensive independent research for several hours each day. Since I wanted to make the most of the hours that the library was open, and because the work that I was doing was so absorbing, I found myself ignoring my stomach when it began to signal that I was hungry. I worked without a break despite the guttural growling that could have been heard by the librarians themselves. It was only when I got a headache I could not ignore that I would reluctantly set aside my work, dash out for some quick junk food, wait for the headache to clear as my blood sugar returned to normal, and then go back to work as soon as possible, bent over those precious books until the librarians told me (firmly but kindly) to leave.
Prior to that, headaches were an infrequent experience. But ever since then, I have had regular migraines and cluster headaches, even when I’m doing everything right: sleeping well, eating well, managing my stress, et cetera. Perhaps it is my body’s revenge for neglecting it when all it wanted was a little regular maintenance.
Ignoring my body until I hurt myself was not fasting. It brought no spiritual benefit; in fact, it led to lasting physical detriment. My brain may have been feasting on my research topic, but my brain was also starving, and this doubtless affected my mood and cognitive functioning in other ways, as well. I let my brain chemistry and my body chemistry go haywire that summer, and although the research I produced was brilliant, the way I treated my body was just about the stupidest thing I could have done to it.
Despite this experience, I still don’t like to make my own meals. And, left to my own devices, I always default to the fastest, cheapest food available. (I have a special affinity for hotdogs and fries from a particular roadside stand in Maryland.) Thankfully, I am married to a woman who is mindful about eating healthy meals and doing so with reliable consistency. I am truly spoiled, in that I hardly ever have to prepare my own meals, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Of course, I feel appropriately guilty about this, but not guilty enough to amend my ways. Maybe one day.
In Life in Christ: Practicing Christian Spirituality, Julia Gatta begins her reflection on fasting by observing that there’s not just one way to do it. “Fasting” does not necessarily mean abstaining from all food and drink, and the importance of fasting in the Christian tradition does not depend upon how rigorously one observes this discipline. As she writes, “Just how we practice [fasting] will depend upon our work and state of health, as we weigh the spiritual benefits of a more or less rigorous fast.”f
Fasting—and by this I mean not just from food, but from whatever—at its best, done prayerfully, willingly, and with intention, trains the will. It is a form of praying with the body and the mind and the heart. Fasting (ideally) increases our compassion. Fasting reminds us how dependent we are on the natural order, on other people, and on God for our well-being. Fasting challenges our attitudes toward food (or toward whatever we feel called to fast from, such as technology). Fasting shakes our notion of what is “enough” for us, what exactly constitutes “our daily bread.” As Gatta puts it, “We sense in our very bodies utter dependence upon God, the giver of all good gifts, and we realize anew our overwhelming need for grace to uphold us in our frailty.”
I’m not sure that there’s anyone alive who has not at some point or other felt alienated from their own body. We spend a lot of time wishing our body (or at least parts of it) looked different than it does; we mourn the ravages of time. We know that sometime in the future, if we live long enough, our bodies will be less functional than they are now. It’s all downhill from here.
In short, our bodies are passing away. A cheery thought, no? Yet, as Julia Gatta writes, “St. Paul teaches that the body bears immense dignity because of our union with Christ in the resurrection.…He further reminds us: ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body’ (1 Cor. 6:20). If we are to ‘glorify God in the body,’ what would that look like?”
Reflecting on that question, I am moved to ask: What would it take for me to see my body the way God sees it? And the answer that comes immediately to mind is, “I need to love the body I have, not the body I want to have, or used to have.” And part of being embodied is learning how to be present in the here and now with oneself and those around us. Only when we love what—and who—God has given us in the present moment can we give that body and our relationships with other embodied creatures over to God’s service with joy and thanksgiving.
Even so, I know what I should do. Eat right. Exercise regularly. Maintain hygienic habits. Worship. Offer thanks. Spend less time on my dang iPhone. In this respect, fasting is not only about food, but about relationships in general. After all, we are all too often gluttons for other things: media consumption, shopping, and any habit or addiction. Fasting reminds us that even good things, if indulged in without moderation or approached without appropriate caution, can take us down a path whose destination is not new life, but death.
So fasting, from food or anything else, when undertaken in the right spirit and under the right conditions, is a part of the very long list of things I “should” do. But every “should” needs some incentive. We have to desire to engage in the practices that lead to physical and spiritual health, not simply know that we should desire them. What will spark the desire for the right things?
The age-old answer has been, is now, and ever will be: the grace of God. We fast so that we can learn (or remember anew) how to hunger and thirst after righteousness. And righteousness is grounded in right relationships, not only to things like food and our electronic devices, but our relationships with our friends and neighbours, our families and the strangers whom we meet. Most importantly of all, seeking a right relationship with God impels us to fast from anything that distracts us from the source of all good, and the only true joy that is eternal. As Julia Gatta writes, “Lent, then, can initiate a recovery of balance that leads to Easter joy. It could begin the hard process of undoing injurious habits that would continue the rest of the year.” As we approach Lent, let us consider what fast(s) we may be called to undertake, so that we can hunger and thirst, above all else, for union with God and each other in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector