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I never miss an opportunity to eat. I am astonished and bewildered by people who tell me they were “too busy” or “forgot” to have a meal. Forgoing food doesn’t necessarily say anything about one’s body size, but it certainly says something about a person’s focus. There’s no doubt about it, I’m focused on food.
In the current stage of my spiritual journey, I’m trying to create space for the non-material world and so I took the day off, both from my 9-5 job and from leading the two meetings I normally do on Wednesdays. This enabled me to attend several Ash Wednesday services (okay, three). One thing they talk about a lot on this holy day is self sacrifice. At each of the masses I attended we read the same passage about “self-examination and repentance … prayer, fasting, and self-denial.”
It’s a tough message, because my intellect says it’s fine, but my emotional side says “you have GOT to be kidding me … skip a meal? Yeah. As if.”
This fear of going without is kind of crazy, really, since there’s never been a time in my life when food was not available to me. I’m fortunate to have experienced no true “hunger.” So I’m not sure what scares me so much about the idea of fasting.
Tonight when I got home from school, Devin was also just getting in from a long day. I immediately sat down and had a bite to eat, but Devin was completely distracted by some boxes that had arrived. True, he started to heat up some soup, but once he started unpacking the shipment of new dishes, he got so wrapped up in it that he turned the stove off. In the end, he waited almost an hour before he finally sat down to eat.
Sigh.
I don’t think that fasting from food is in the cards for me—at least not right now. But I do understand the value of self-examination and sacrifice. And fortunately there are multiple avenues for doing that. Interestingly, the Hebrew scriptures offer an interesting perspective. For Isaiah, it’s not about what you DON’T do, but about what you DO. (see quote below). That’s something I’ll take to heart.
One thing I am going to **DO** is to find my Belleruth Naperstek mp3’s and listen to her again. She has some great meditations that helped me out a lot a couple of years ago. Back then I was regularly taking time to meditate and listen to my body, and discovered that most of the time I was either tired or sore, but I was absolutely never hungry.
That’s something I seem to have forgotten all about. Like I said, I’m kind of focused on food. But I’m willing to see if I can learn and grow. And there’s certainly no harm in giving it a try.
And then there’s the whole thing about using my resources to help others …
Isaiah 58:6
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly.
although, Vickie, does that not imply that “normal behaviour” is to eat 3 meals and constantly snack in between them? which is just the sort of behaviour I am trying not to encourage with my kids- we are working to 3 meals and one formal snack time
Comment by Jane 02.07.08 @ 4:57 amYou are my cyber-twin! Many times I have asked myself why I am so afraid of being hungry. And, like you, I have never felt real “hunger”. But I am terrified of it! If I have an appointment right after work which will delay my dinner, I find myself worrying about future hunger that may or may not materialize. How ridiculous!
Comment by Elizabeth Callahan 02.07.08 @ 7:40 amI can not believe what I just read, two seconds BEFORE I opened your site, I was going over a conversation I had last night with a friend wherein we were discussing that we never forget to eat, I chuckled and than said to myself why is my focus always on food, than bam I go to my favorites click on your site and see your blog, I fell over!!
Comment by deanna 02.07.08 @ 11:21 amI tried a 24-hour fast just to see if I could do it–I don’t think I’ve EVER gone a whole day without eating in my entire life! I was really scared of doing it, I’m not sure what I thought would happen. Maybe I would collapse from hunger and fatigue, pass out, go insane from the cravings, something like that.
Which is kind of silly; 24 hours without food is nothing! But it’s really daunting if you haven’t done it before. I planned it carefully: I spent the entire day at a museum with my husband, so we had something to keep our minds off food, and I had a couple videos at home to watch. I drank A LOT of water. I was definitely hungry several times, but it wasn’t any worse than the little hunger you feel when it’s coming up to a mealtime. I was able to deal with it mentally, which is what I was most doubtful about.
I think it’s worth doing; it’s a good exercise in remembering what real hunger feels like, and sort of breaking some of the panicky type of emotional ties to food. You’ll be really proud of yourself when it’s over!
Comment by Marla 02.07.08 @ 4:12 pmI think fearing not having food is instinctual…without it we would die. But that aside, the irrational fears we have when we go without food by choice is interesting to say the least and appears to be quite common.
IN fact whenever I’d attempt to diet my first fear, and the one that caused me to quit, was, “what if I’d forgo food and there’s a famine?” Quite irrational.
When I finally did set my fears aside and go on a diet and successfully lose 50 pounds something terrible did happen…..I got cancer.
But, I may haven gotten cancer anyway. Who knows.
My oncologist said I probably did myself a favor losing those 50 pounds because my cancer was estrogen dependent and the more fat, the more estrogen….
That was 15 years ago, so it didn’t kill me….yet.
I will say though, that I no longer fear going without food…I just prefer not to… 
4 years ago I successfully fasted each Wed during Lent. By successfully I mean in private. It was between God and myself. It was wonderful what it did for me spiritually. I also ended up losing about 3# in the 6 weeks. It was a win win.I have not been able to “successfully” fast during Lent since, because I can’t keep the, “I wonder if I’ll lose” thoughts out of my head. I’m pretty sure that’s not where God wants my mind while fasting on Ash Wed 
So, I now add extra service duties and more Bible study to stay focused during this season. This was a wonderful post for many reasons. It’s always been a joy to see you share all your health knowledge with your readers and now you’ve started to so openly share your faith as well. You truly are a blessing to the masses. May you and Devin have a blessed Easter season.
That got me to think.
I must be some sort of UFO in all of that, though. On the one hand, I am sort of ‘afraid’ of getting hungry (or rather, TOO hungry), in that I know it’s an open door to fixing easy meals and resorting to fast-food/take-out. On the other hand, it’s not rare for me to actually forget to eat if I’m really engrossed in something. I’ve already skipped meals when playing a computer game with a friend, or when dabbling in blog platforms and PHP. I even remember one day, last year, when I got up in the morning, almost fainted, then realized I hadn’t eaten since noon the day before due to gaming.
Hm. Too bad “doing my homework” or “being at the office” isn’t as engrossing. 
My 4th grader came home yesterday and told me that her teacher had suggested that “fasting” (Ash Wednesday and Fridays) is eating 3 meals. The “fasting” is between meals. Good way to suggest the concept to a 4th grader (I think).
Comment by vickie 02.07.08 @ 3:55 am