Lent, Day 12: Lent Pales in Comparison to Ramadan

 If you think Lent is easy, try Ramadan

In Lent, Christians give up one habit or indulgence or necessity for 40 days. Admirable fast. Tough enough. But, come on, is it that hard?

In Ramadan, Muslims give up, from sunrise to sunset every day for a month, every intake of food or liquid.

Try it.

I have. Just to know the experience. Just to empathize with my Muslim friends and neighbors. I purchased the iPhone app. I followed the simple guidance. I woke up earlier to eat before sunrise. I held off eating or drinking until sundown.

I have not yet made it more than 10 days.

It is hard. Without a household or community who is supporting you in the journey, it is beyond difficult.

If you bypassed Lent (meh!), try Ramadan fasting that begins in April.

I will begin Ramadan fast again this year. I hope to complete it.

Completing either Lent or Ramadan or whatever intentional act of self-denial for the sake of spiritual renewal is the potentially transformative thing, it seems to me.

Lent, Day 11: Fasting Does Not Mean Passivity

Fasting is not passive, regressive, restive, or retreating.

Don’t be misled by a false notion that fasting in Lent means retreat from the troubles of the world. Or that it means resting a bit while whirlwinds of conflict—ideological or otherwise—swirl around us. Do not imagine fasting as a quaint, antiquated practice worthy of dabbling in for a bit of spiritual exploration. Do not make the mistake of fasting as a passive engagement in the face of the powers that be.

Tremendous forces are at work in our world. Principalities and powers can—and do—readily overwhelm those along for entertainment or a bit of enlightenment or daring to use them for their own ends. Half-hearted joy rides in Lent may draw one into raw power struggles in the depths.

When we dare to “deny oneself” we may be drawing a line in the sand of a heretofore silent and satiated ego that, offended, may well rise up and throw everything in the book at us to get us to return to “normal.”

If Jesus’ own temptations in his forty days of wilderness fasting are any indication, buckle your seatbelt and hang on. Whatever happens, keep your fast—no matter how trivial it may seem. Something bigger is happening that makes a simple self-denial hard to maintain.

For encouragement in this aspect of your Lenten journey, you might read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It seems to map the terrain of ego and temptation well.

Fasting, instead of disengaging us from real personal, interpersonal, and social/political/systemic struggles, may drive us more deeply into the heart of them. Perhaps there, in the depths and without a clear path through or out, we may experience something that will help us be part of liberation, equitable community, and change on the other side of the fast.

For now, however, stay lashed to the mast and endure the wild ride.

Second Sunday in Lent

 Try to connect wilderness fasting with Sunday feasting

If you’re trying to observe—or at least pay attention to—Lent, you know that we are a fourth of the way through the forty-day fast. Ten fast days down since Ash Wednesday, thirty to go before Easter Sunday.

As a fast participant or observer, you know by now that the six Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter are not counted as fast days. There are actually forty-seven days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. But every Sunday is a feast day: a perpetual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus and ever a signal of the new person, new life, and changed future all who look to Jesus are invited to live.

Even though Sundays within Lent are feast days, most Lenten observers do not interrupt their chosen forty-day fast. Those who choose to deny themselves sweets for forty days of wilderness-like fasting typically do not use a Lenten Sunday to take a break from fasting and stuff themselves with cake and candy.

Instead of ceasing to fast, Sundays in Lent are opportunities to recollect, reframe and retell the story that connects wilderness fasting with Resurrection day feasting. In the Gospels, what does self-denial suffering have to do with breakthrough and transformation? How did Jesus’ fasting and temptations connect to the first day of the week after he was crucified? How did his generous time invested outside Jerusalem impact his ultimate sojourn inside the city?

What is experienced in wilderness fasting informs and frames every other part of the journey, including the privilege of feasting.

Please note: it is not necessary to suffer in fasting in order to feast. One does not earn the feast with one’s fasting. The feast—Grace—is free, no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve come through. But, most find that following Jesus in the wilderness experiences certainly conditions and may deepen one’s recognition and gratitude for Grace.

COVID-19 and Polio Vaccinations: A Generation Between

 Deadly, debilitating pandemics and mass vaccinations are not new to my age group

I got jabbed today. My first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shot was at a Meijer in-store pharmacy. I signed up for their waiting list and was contacted less than 24 hours before I was able to roll up my sleeve.

There was one weird and wonderful thing about the experience: 

I stood in line with people just in my own 60-64 age group—peers born near the end of the Baby Boom generation (1946-1964) who were too young to participate firsthand in the upheavals of the 1960s. I thought about that while we waited to be vaccinated by professionals too young to know our story.

We’re older, but not old enough to have marched or protested or been drafted for Vietnam. I turned nine years old in 1968. By the time I turned 18, there was not even a draft to register for (or resist) and protests were a thing of the past—or so we thought at the time. In 1977, The Beatles were long gone, Springsteen was becoming the new Boss, The Ramones and Earth, Wind & Fire were emergent, and Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Queen, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and Bob Seeger seemed to dominate pop music.

Having lived our childhoods through the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, and Watergate, our age group inherently distrusts authority, isn’t surprised at the worst, and yet still believes the best is possible.

There we stood together, the early sixties group, waiting to roll up our sleeves again. Deadly, debilitating pandemics and mass vaccinations are not new to us. We did this as small children for the polio vaccine. We’re doing it again with great hope for all.

Lent, Day 5: What Kind of Fast?

I’m thinking about the kinds of fasting we may choose during Lent.

The forty days of fasting in Lent mimics Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the wilderness after his baptism. The Gospels indicate that (1) Jesus was drawn into and led in the wilderness by the Spirit, where he was (2) tempted by the devil. I’ll try to unpack those two juxtaposed conceptions in an upcoming post.

So, for forty fast days (and we typically throw the six Sunday feast days in there) many of us who claim to/try to follow Jesus in an earnest way choose to fast from something we ordinarily do or consume or use.

Usually the chosen fast is something small and relatively manageable. Like chocolate (see the movie ‘Chocolat’ and you’ll discover it’s not as easy as it seems!). Sometimes it’s something more difficult. Like alcohol or smoking or fatty foods we like or social media. Pick your poison.

If you haven’t ever tried denying yourself something somewhat significant for forty days, I recommend it. See how it goes.

Who amongst us can honestly keep an even mildly chosen prohibition or fast for forty days?

Some may. Some do.

I have kept to self-selected prohibitions through Lent several times. And at the end, it has frequently felt more like a triumph of self improvement than a grace-assisted journey. I have attributed focused self-discipline to righteousness and made my Lenten victory over small vices a point of self congratulations. “I” made it!

It likely had little or nothing to do with faith. A good exercise, for sure. Good health benefits. But faith expanding? Heart purifying? Love increasing? Not likely.

Given the shallowness of those experiences, I think: if I am going to do Lent, I might as well choose to fast more deeply. Dare I fast from what it is not only difficult to fast, but what will be impossible without existential suffering and reaching out in unexplored territory of faith to finish?

I’m contemplating this today. 

Maybe I should just stick to chocolate.

Sundays in Lent

Sundays in Lent are not fast days.

For the longest time I did not realize that Sundays are not included in the forty days of Lent.

Whatever the season or fast or event, the church has historically observed each Sunday as a day of celebration of the new and forward-looking life made possible by the resurrection of Jesus. The early Christians, who were Jews, viewed Jesus’ resurrection so pivotally that they dared move the Sabbath from the seventh day (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). In the church, the first day of the week, the day Jesus was resurrected, is always a day of celebratory feasting, not somber fasting.

So, if one counts the days from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday (the day before Easter), one arrives at 46 days. Six of those days are Sundays and they are not considered fast days. In order to get to forty days (the time Jesus fasted in the wilderness), one includes six weeks of six days of fasting (36) and adds four more fast days (Ash Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).

Now I know. Now you know. 

Now, so what?

If I take Lent seriously as an intentional journey with Jesus through a wilderness of temptation and preparation that culminates in the gut-wrenching week of Passion, what do I do with these six pause days, these six interruptions of grace and celebration amid an otherwise somber slog?

Feast with remembrance and recollection of the whole story.

Feast with retelling and rehearsal of the full journey, complete with its spoiler-alert ending.

Feast with gratitude for such amazing and accessible grace the whole journey through.

Feast, knowing that tomorrow we will resume the fast and walk on, walk forward with faith and hope into an unknown future.

——

On one of these Lenten Sundays, I want to explore here the word “feast” and how it is used in Christian liturgy.

Lent, Day 3: Social Media Fast?

Shall I fast from social media for Lent?

This is a question that would be foreign 15 years ago, but pertinent today.

I notice that Twitter users, by and large, appear to have no knowledge of—or care for—Lent. Nothing has changed for the 1,500 or so accounts that I follow. Many of these are press or politically-related accounts. They seem to be in a constant tit-for-tat war of words with their ideological opponents. Every now and then they strike a blow that stirs me enough to “like” their response. But, generally, it is pablum.

Do I need this?

What would my life be like over the next 40 days or so without Twitter or Facebook?

I’m thinking about this as my belatedly-chosen fast.