Today, Ash Wednesday, is a day of fasting. Not many of you have met me personally, but if you ever saw me, you would see right away that I haven't missed many meals in my life. Hardly any at all. And those that I have, I've more than made up for with extra meals.
So a fasting day like today isn't something I can just pull off without effort (although my day at work is so stressful, I can barely take time to think about the rumblings in my tummy). It takes some will power, some stern lectures to myself, as well as some self-reasoning that it will be dinner time sooner or later.
The rules and regs for fasting on Ash Wednesday are: those of us over 18 (pretty much all of us here) and under age 59 (probably not many of us here) are permitted one full meal today. I have mine as the evening dinner. We also are permitted two smaller meals if needed to keep up our strength. It wouldn't kill me to skip the two smaller meals, but I do think I work better if my stomach isn't completely empty for hours at a stretch, so I had a banana for breakfast - on a normal day, the banana would be a mere supplement for the main event, which is almost always a big bowl of corn flakes or some similar breakfast cereal. For lunch, I scrambled myself an egg and toasted a slice of white bread, with that spreadable butter/canola oil mixture on it. By that point (roughly around noon today), I was hungry enough that I found it to be the most delicious scrambled egg ever scrambled or consumed by man. That works out to about half (or, to be honest, probably less than half) of a normal noontime meal for me. I also had an orange, making the case to myself that fruits and vegetables are nutritious.
For dinner, my daughter who lives with us is scheduled to do the cooking - I think she's going to do some sort of vegetable curry.
So I'm not exactly setting any records for deprivation. But I am feeling hungrier than I normally would. We feed hungry people at our parish. We have a food pantry, we provide them with gift cards for grocery stores and McDonalds, and during the summer months we do hot suppers a couple of times a month. Nobody starves to death around here for lack of food, but there are quite a few people who are food-insecure, and sometimes they may go as long as a few days without any meals. I'm trying to offer up my hunger today as a sort of solidarity with them.
Vegetable curry - even that sounds good to me at this point. 4 1/2 hours to go!
Tuna salad?
ReplyDeleteWe're over 59, but still try to somewhat keep the spirit of the thing. Our main meal is at noon, mac and cheese and fish sticks. Then tuna salad sandwiches and canned pears for supper.
ReplyDeleteFriday brown-bag lunch in my school days was always tuna sandwiches and an apple or orange. I liked it, sort of comfort food.
My mother used to make me egg salad sandwiches for my school lunch for Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent. Back then, we didn't have the insulated lunchboxes with the ice packs - lunch was, a sandwich in a sandwich baggie, along with an apple and some cookies, all in a brown bag that sat in my locker until lunchtime.
ReplyDeleteOne time, the egg salad on my sandwich went bad. Only time I ever ralphed at school. Ever since that day (I was probably about eight years old), I haven't been able to look at egg salad.
Bummer about the egg salad! Yeah, we didn't have ice packs or anything, either. The brown bags were in high school, because the plaid or cartoon character metal lunchboxes I had in grade school would have been uncool. One time my mom ran out of brown bags and sent my lunch in my sister's Winnie the Pooh box. I was a long time living that down.
DeleteSame thing with me and as*****us. Can't even spell out the name. My mother is almost 95. Still can't get her to take the RC senior citizen perks.
DeleteThe Church Ladies had a lot of rules about what constitutes a small meal, a large meal, how long you should "wear" your ashes, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteI ignored them. As an Anglican I always spent Lent refraining from unneeded food, purchases, or other luxuries.
I try not to over-think it, but it makes me mindful of things--not just food--that we blow out money on without thinking that are beyond he reach of others: Is a haircut a luxury? How about paper towels? Or seed for the birdfeeder? What am I throwing away that I could be reusing or recycling? Am I consolidating car trips so I don't waste gas?
When I feel the urge for something I don't need, I buy soap, diapers, or sanitary products for the food bank, items they're always out of.
I always find my mood improves under this regime, while fasting just makes me nauseated and resentful.
I'm sure the birds would tell you that seed for their feeder is not an extravagance!
DeleteI get from my haircuts what some folks get from their psychiatrists, and for a heckuva lot less money. Birdseed also necessary since, under current policy, birds are not.
DeleteThe vegetable curry had tofu in it. I have to say I'm not a fan of tofu. But it's a penitential day. Now I'm telling myself I don't really need to have a double cheeseburger tomorrow to make up for lost ground.
ReplyDeleteHave the cheeseburger. Skip the fries.
DeleteI made a tofu pizza once. It was the only time a pizza got a "thumbs down" from my kids.
DeleteI had Ben Franklin's tofu recipe at the City Tavern in Philadelphia, rebuild of the original Revolutionary Tavern that burned down. I liked the dish. Unfortunately, you have to be a good cook to make vegan cooking taste good, and I ain't one. The German chef who recreates dishes from that era is.
DeleteI agree vegan cooking can taste very good if you are a good cook. One of the nice things is that you can have a very delicious meal that makes you feel very full but wake up the next morning and the scales have not changed at all.
DeleteI make sure my diet has enough protein. While that is difficult to do with using only vegan protein, adding vegan protein to animal sources helps while keeping the total calories down.
With my mother living with me, I don't want to inflict my bad vegan cooking on her. I used to eat vegan a couple times a week to lower my carbon footprint. And, as you say, it lowers one's weight as well.
DeleteThe neighborhood where I work is a food desert, and I'm kind of chained to the office during the tax season, but the pizza place where we have an account (we feed our volunteers) made me a tuna sandwich. That worked well for my meal (it was a big sandwich). I had a yogurt and some clementines around the rest of the day. It was all good.
ReplyDeleteWho knew they had tofu back in that day!
ReplyDeleteLast year my dad was complaining to my sister that he had fried some bacon for breakfast before he remembered it was Ash Wednesday. She said, "so what did you do, eat it, or give it to Sis (the dog)?" He said, "No, she's a good Catholic dog. I gave it to the barn cats. They're a bunch of heathen!"
Catholic dogs and heathen cats. I love it. Have to tell that one to my cat lady friend.
DeleteThe WaPo's Acts of Faith writers asked their readers to tell them about what they would give up for Lent, or whatever action they take.
ReplyDeleteI liked this - Maybe Jim might like to try it?
During one Let, a bishop of the Episcopal Church challenged us to limit our food budgets to the amount provided by food stamps (SNAP). Eye-opening experience that built empathy.
Barbara Gay, Alexandria, Va.
And this in a related article - giving up plastic
...this year, several churches across the country are encouraging congregants to give up plastics.
Dozens of Pennsylvania churches near Pittsburgh that belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are encouraging their churchgoers to forgo commonly discarded single-use plastics. Each week, parishioners will be encouraged to give up a different item: shopping bags, drinking straws, water bottles, Styrofoam and food wrappers.
The Rev. Sarah Rossing, pastor of St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church in Youngstown, Pa., said the idea originally came from a similar challenge that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh issued this year to reduce dependence on single-use plastics such as grocery bags and Styrofoam plates. “It’s a way to think about it as more than just a personal thing, like chocolate or alcohol that’s enjoyable,” Rossing said. “This is asking people to give up convenience … and be more intentional with things and the Earth.”....Last year, the Church of England urged its worshipers to give up single-use plastics, distributing a calendar with environmentally themed Bible verses and suggestions on how to avoid using plastics. This year, the church is encouraging congregants to go on “litter pilgrimages” where they walk together, pray together and collect litter.....The world produces more than 300 million tons of plastic each year, and scientists estimate that up to 91 percent of plastic is never recycled, threatening the environment and poisoning animals. Plastics don’t biodegrade and can stay in landfills for hundreds of years.
More here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/03/05/latest-lent-challenge-churches-give-up-plastic/?utm_term=.77ffb00581b8&wpisrc=nl_faith&wpmm=1
Anne, I like those ideas. If anyone wants to try the SNAP challenge, the allotment is $126 per month per person in food-only items. I might try that. Raber will be living on a lot of soup and stew ...
DeleteI might try a Lenten version of the Advent calendar I did this time. Every day put a nonperishable food item in a bag for the food pantry. Once a week drop the bag off.
DeleteAnne, that food stamp idea is pretty interesting. I'm going to discuss it with my wife.
DeleteI usually try for some spiritual reading during Lent. Suggestions, please. I prefer fiction.
ReplyDeleteIn past years I have done:
Lying Awake (Mark Salzburg)
In This House of Brede and Black Narcissus (Rumer Godden)
Silence (Shusaka Endo)
Utopia (St. Thomas More)
The letters of Flannery O'Connor
Brighton Rock and The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene)
Short stories of J.F. Powers
The Testament of Mary (Colm Toibin)
The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. The White Witch, also by Elizabeth Goudge. Kristen Lavransdater by Sigrid Undset.
DeleteRead Undset many years ago. Goudge more recently , but not The White Witch. Discovered "The Corner that Held Them" in a pile of books Dave brought home from the library sale. So there're a couple to get me started.
Delete"The Corner that Held Them" sounds interesting (from the Amazon synopsis). Another good one is "The Godforgotten" by Gladys Schmitt. The premise is that a medieval village was cut off from the rest of the world by an earthquake. The people thought that the Parousia had come and gone, and they had been forgotten. (Sounds like "Left Behind", but it was written years before, in 1972.) Then in modern times, the village was rediscovered. In some ways it was a rude awakening.
DeleteUnfortunately, it's sometimes hard to access some vintage books if you don't happen to catch them at a library sale. Libraries are down-rated if they don't cull their books aggressively. Which means that they always have the latest, but more than a couple or three years out, unless there was a lot of demand, books are gone. Of course classics like Dickens will always be around, but in the constant struggle to remain "relevant", good reads from the past which don't rise to that level are gotten rid of.
Just ordered The Godforgotten on inter-liberry loan.
DeleteI don't read fiction as spiritual reading, and, with the exception of Flannery O'Connor, St. Thomas More, and Colm Tolbin, have never even heard of the books/writers Jean and Katherine are discussing. Maybe I will try one of the others mentioned, if I can find one in the library. Betraying my ignorance now of a whole genre of fiction.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do have multiple shelves of books on spirituality and religion. Not all are christian-based, although the majority are.
I like the simplicity of the approach of some of the Buddhist writers, especially Thich Nhat Hanh. I have several of his books, and a couple of others by the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist writers.
I have a number of books by contemporary Catholic spiritual writers such as Henri Nouwen, Richard Rohr, Ron Rolheiser, Joan Chittister,Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Anthony DeMello. A few books by Kung, and by Raymond Brown, and a couple of other theologians, but I mostly avoid heavy theology. Kung and Brown and the others I have write like most people instead of relying on academic terminology. Also among my favorites, Kathleen Norris ("Cloister Walk" and "Dakota"), I have books by some of the writers in the emerging church movement, such as Brian McLaren. I have several books by Marcus Borg and a Crossan or two. John W. O'Malley's "What Happened at Vatican II' is good for historical background, as is "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll which should be a must-read for all christians, especially for Catholics. I have started, but not finished Diarmuid MacCullough's "Christianity, the First Three Thousand Years".
I have books by Karen Armstrong, Barbara Brown Taylor (best known as a homilist), N.T Wright and Rowan Williams. I just have started reading Anne Lamott's most recent book, "Almost Everything - Notes on Hope". I have several of her books.
What many of these books have in common is their simplicity, their every-day-people-ness. They are easy reads. But often plenty of wisdom and insights, accessible to ordinary people. The classics like Julian of Norwich, Avila, John of the Cross etc can be tougher reading - I have their works on my shelf too and have read them.
Although I took 6 semesters of religion/theology and 6 semesters of philosophy (all required), I still don't relate to much of it. Most of my books can be read in bursts, a short chapter at a time in a doc's waiting room, or, when we had kids, waiting for them to come to the car. Many are well suited to meditation, a short chapter focusing on one idea or one scripture passage or a quote from a desert father or mother. There is no racing through a plot. The authors don't often theologize, they don't pretend that they actually understand God, they simply share their thoughts on the same kinds of subjects that we all think about.
Self-styled "serious intellectual" types might dismiss some of these books as fluff, but I find myself going back to re-read them regularly. Each time I do, I discover something new in them, an insight I missed previously.
I just bought a new NT, called "The Evolution of the Word", put together by Marcus Borg in the chronological order in which the different books were written. He says "It will change the way we see the emergence and development of earliest christianity...By putting these documents... in the order in which they were written, this book presents a literary chronology-a panoramic view of how the ideas and stories of the NT changed over time. ....(it enables) seeing, reading, and hearing these documents in their historical context". I haven't started reading it yet, because I just bought it last week. Maybe I will finish by Easter.
I like Kathleen Norris. My daughter-in-law gave me Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace. Another good author in the nonfiction category is Kent Nerburn. I have Small Graces and Calm Surrender (on forgiveness) by him. The nice thing about these books is that the chapters are short and stand alone, good for meditation.
DeleteAn entertaining take on the lives of the saints is "Saint Watching", by Phyllis McGinley. This one is vintage and probably not in print anymore.
I don't do "serious intellectual" spiritual books much, either.
You might want to take a look at Paul Knitter's "Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian." In a course I've taught here in El Salvador, I've used the final chapter ("Making Peace and Being Peace"); the students have found it very helpful. Paul has also spoken with them via Skype. Peter Steinfels wrote a good review of the book in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/us/10beliefs.html
ReplyDeleteSo many good suggestions. After reading the review, I think that Mr. Knitter's book might be very helpful to me at this stage of the journey.
ReplyDeleteWe leave soon for a trip to Australia to visit our youngest son and his family. Lots, and lots, and LOTS of hours on airplanes - way too many - I hate flying, but how else could we see our sons and grandkids?.
I will be stocking my ipad with some of these books. Thanks, all!