TO FAST

Lent is fast approaching, no pun intended. When some of us think of Lent, we think about the Lenten fast, about giving up, about self-denial. Those “some” who do this thinking are usually those who are somewhat advanced in years when spiritual and physical discipline were part and parcel of our Christian life. Today, the idea of fasting has gone the way of the hand lawn mower. When my children hear the word fast, they think in terms of speed and not, if you will, simply slowing down and taking a good look at where you are heading – which is one of the reasons for the Lenten season in the first place. And even for those of us who do fast or do some sort of spiritual discipline during Lent, speed is sometimes also of essence: how fast can we get this over with so that we can go back to an easier life style? Yet we all tend to give at least lip service, if not to the idea of fasting, at least to the belief that during Lent one should be engaged in some sort of spiritual and physical  discipline. Sometimes we even make the effort to be so engaged.

The right intention, of course, is what is important. I may indeed fast during Lent; I may give up all desserts and sweets; I may not eat between meals. If I do so because I want to strengthen my spiritual life by weakening my attraction to physical pleasures, then my intention is well and good. But if my intention is primarily to find a religious excuse to go on a diet, then my intention leaves something to be desired. What is important is that we begin to understand what fasting us all about, why the church encourages us to engage in such spiritual and physical disciplines, and how they might apply to our daily lives especially during Lent.

A friend of my once said to me that he understood fasting as letting go of their things that get in the way of God. I don’t know about you, but there are lots of those things in my life: food sometimes being there at the top of the list. In fact, there are a lot of life’s little and big pleasures that I enjoy that call out to me, want me to make them gods in my life. It is in Lent that the church asks me to try to get a handle on these gods of my life, these pleasures that want me to look out for good old Number One. It is during Lent that I am called to let go of those gods and grab hold of God.

That is not easy. Pleasure has a wonderful way of enticing us to do that which we know we should not do and making it seem all right. Denial, on the other hand, does not come with built-in pleasure. What it does come with is delayed satisfaction, delayed gratification. I used to jog a lot. Most of the time I hated the pain that went with it. But the satisfaction that came with completing a jog made it all worthwhile. Pleasure, instant gratification, comes up front and it is just that: instant. Delayed gratification is also just that: delayed. But it lasts. And it seems that it is only when we delay gratification and pleasure that we get a handle of what we are really seeking. Our souls are restless until they rest in God. But we never discover that until we take and make the time to realize that truth. That is Lent: letting go of the things that get in the way of God so that we can grab hold of God.