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jenny_islanderToday's post was to have been about the mechanics of fasting. However, after thinking it over, I decided that the Web is not the appropriate venue for that. Fasting in modern U.S. culture is so tangled up with attempts to stop feeling powerless, with hatred of the body, with obsessive scrupulosity, with delusions of perfection and supreme knowledge. I don't want to see my words recirculating as "one weird trick" in a TikTok. If you want to read a summary of the mechanics of fasting that is supported by many centuries of experience and shared observations, get the book and read it for yourself--the whole thing, mind.
So here's what Foster added in the study guide, which was written years later.
To begin with, here's his summary of the point of fasting as a spiritual discipline:
The central idea in fasting is the voluntary denial of an otherwise normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity. There is nothing wrong with any normal life-functions; it is simply that there are times when we set them aside in order to concentrate.
This being so, Foster says, we can extract this "central principle" and apply it to other areas of life. Here are his suggestions for fasts that are not about eating.
Next post: Further reading on fasting.
So here's what Foster added in the study guide, which was written years later.
To begin with, here's his summary of the point of fasting as a spiritual discipline:
The central idea in fasting is the voluntary denial of an otherwise normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity. There is nothing wrong with any normal life-functions; it is simply that there are times when we set them aside in order to concentrate.
This being so, Foster says, we can extract this "central principle" and apply it to other areas of life. Here are his suggestions for fasts that are not about eating.
- Fast from social interaction with the intent to examine whether we are thinking of the good of others or only of what good we get out of being with them.
- Fast from solitude with the intent to examine whether we are really that comfortable with our own company, or just disdainful or nervous of social interaction.
- Fast from "the media," by which Foster means "the newspaper, the radio, the television, the magazines." He wrote this book before we all had home computers, much less smart phones. There is nothing wrong with them, he says, but "It has always amazed me that many people seem incapable (or at least unwilling) to go through an entire day without concentrating on a single thing." In order to hear what God has to say, we need to stop distracting ourselves.
- Separately from the above, he suggests "times of fasting from the telephone." This in the era of landlines. "The telephone is a wonderful invention, but it must not control us." Wise words.
- Living in a state in which billboards are (or were) legal, Foster suggests fasting from them too. Specifically, he dislikes "bigger-than-life pictures of foxy ladies and well-fed babies." I think he means advertising in general. It's even more difficult to escape advertising now than it was then. But if you can't permanently remove it from your life--because, say, it's a billboard you have to drive past--Foster suggests forming a habit of thinking of something else as it passes by. Pick a social justice issue to bring to mind instead.
- Finally, Foster says, we should "discover times to fast from our gluttonous consumer culture that we find so comfortable." (I note throughout this reading that he assumes certain things about his audience.) He says that spending time with people who live in what Mahatma Gandhi called an "eternal compulsory fast" is important to our sanity. The lives of the ultra-comfortable certainly prove this. He doesn't specify how to do it; I suggest finding a non-profit in your community that is doing real good for people whose lives are a weary grind, and volunteering.
Next post: Further reading on fasting.
