Those of you who have a Christian background will know why I am speaking on fasting today. This coming Wednesday is "Ash Wednesday" which signals the beginning of Lent, a period of fasting, 40 days before Easter. The practice dates back to the middle of the first Millennium and was originally a much more stringent fast than it is today, eliminating all animal products from the diet. Not only was food intake restricted, but also fleshly pleasures such as sexual relations. We know this because of historical records which document the dramatic increase in births nine months after Easter.

Fasting is hardly a practice invented by the Christians. Before recorded history, fasting has been practiced as a part of religious observances which continue today. Mayans had elaborate fasting rituals. Jewish law commands complete fasting on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Native Americans fast for several days while on a vision quest. In the Islamic world, an entire month, called Ramadan, is set aside for fasting from dawn until dusk. Just about every religious tradition has a fast day - except Unitarian Universalism.

So today I thought an exploration of the value of fasting might be in order since we do not have a U.U. fasting period. Are we missing something by not having a fast day and if we did have a fast, what would it mean?

In most religions, fasting is an act of submission toward the greater glorification of God. By giving up some source of nutrition or pleasure, one can demonstrate one's devotion to God. Abstinence helps the devotees recognize their dependency on providence and the need to worship God from whom all blessings flow. The fast purifies the hearts of the devotees and restores their faith and right relation to their Creator.

This is all fine and laudable, but in the real world it doesn't usually work out this way. Quite early in the use of fasting for purification, those cantankerous prophets noticed that people used fasting not to glorify God but rather to glorify their own willpower or indulge their own psychological illnesses.

In Isaiah, there is a passage I'd like to quote for this morning which demonstrates the longevity of the misuse of fasting:

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
	and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
	and to hit with wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
	will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
	a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a rush,
	and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
	and a day acceptable to the Lord?

I believe it was Kafka who wrote the essay, the Hunger Artist, which portrayed a fellow who made fasting his occupation. Near death, he had forgotten why he was fasting and had focused his attention solely on the art of fasting. Voluntary hardship can be used for self-glorification as the original motivation and meaning is lost.

This misuse of fasting is hardly just a European deviancy. Listen to an interesting example describing this human tendency I found in the news magazine The Economist:

[The Islamic Holy Month of] Ramadan in Egypt ... has become a month of feasting as much as fasting. Consumption surges by 25% because shops stay open until late at night and revelers stay up until the early hours of morning before tucking into a pre-fast "supper". And at Ramadan breakfasts Egyptians eat so heartily that the government has to lay on extra supplies of (state-subsidized) staples such as flour, sugar, rice and cooking oil.[1]

Stories such as these are humorous, but in the extreme can become dangerous. Losing touch with the original meaning of fasting can turn into a pathology. Our Western obsession with slender women has aggravated the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa, or self-starvation, and bulimia, bingeing and purging. Searching for a socially preferable fat distribution rather than a healthy well- nourished constitution, young women use self-denial and self-punishment to mold their bodies.

Unusual eating habits are not new. Obsessive fasting was practiced by some medieval female Christian saints. Some authors of late have tried to draw some connections with eating disorders of today. I invite you to judge for yourself reports of some of their behaviors:

Catherine of Siena reduced her diet to bread, uncooked vegetables, and water as a teenager, and as an adult reportedly took nothing but water and bitter herbs (which she spit out, except when she was ordered by spiritual directors to consume food, in which case she became violently ill and vomited it back up). Veronica Giuliani ate no ordinary food, but did consume cat vomit and licked the walls of her cell with her tongue, swallowing dirt and spiders in the process. Catherine of Genoa was for 23 years unable to eat at all during Lent, or for the 40 days before Christmas.[2]

Clearly some strange and dangerous behaviors have become associated with the act of fasting. Any religious act can lose its meaning and become corrupted if practiced without awareness of its purpose and intention. Yet I have not answered the question: "is there value in fasting?" I believe there is. From the health community rather than the religious community comes some of the most persuasive evidence of the value of fasting.

On Monday I was driving around doing a few errands listening to my new favorite radio station in Tampa, called WMNF at 88.5 on your FM digital readout. The host was interviewing a fellow who assists and monitors people while they fast to improve their health. Some of the ideas he related are striking and go against the conventional wisdom.

Why fasting has value for health has to do with the downside of abundance. Our bodies don't require much food to maintain our internal balance of vitamins, minerals, sugars and amino acids in our blood-streams. There are mechanisms in our body to signal us when no more food needs to be consumed, but we are not usually trained as children to pay attention to them. Most of us were programmed to have three meals a day whether we were hungry or not. And if our plate wasn't clean, a punishment was probable. How many have been harangued about the starving children someplace in the world who will perish if you don't eat all your Brussels sprouts? Usually, though, we are more than happy to lick the platter clean. Because we are attracted to the pleasurable stimulation of sugar, salt and fat, we ignore the signals from our stomachs to stop eating.

When the body consumes more than it needs, it has two choices: store or excrete. The more extra there is, the more to be saved or discarded or, most likely, both at once. The problem is that the body's ability to discard is slower than our ability to consume, so things that our body would like to get rid of build up in our systems causing problems. As people age, this build-up can become toxic to the body in numerous ways, some of which may now be intimately familiar, such as clogging of the arteries.

When consumption stops, the body has a chance to catch up in the internal disposal process. The excess that cannot be discarded ends up getting dumped into the fat cells. Fasting for more than a few days requires careful attention by an expert to watch for signs of problems as the toxins are released from the fat cells. The speed of a fast can be controlled by adding back into the diet fruit and vegetable juices. Most people can fast for about two weeks without any risk to their bodies from canabolic metabolism as stored tissue is converted to energy. And you'll be happy to know that fasting gets easier as you get older. The body has elaborate mechanisms to protect itself from harm. For example, during a fast the metabolism slows to conserve energy.

Thus, medical fasting can actually improve one's health and relieve medical conditions caused or aggravated by elimination problems. Far from self-destructive behavior, fasting can be self-restorative under supervision by an expert.

Even if fasting may actually be a healthy thing to do, that doesn't mean it is easy, even with medical supervision. Fasting is difficult, especially in the initial few days. The release of stored waste into the bloodstream can be unpleasant. Habit patterns around food consumption are quite strong and any deviation causes distress. But distress can also be an opportunity to learn. These distress signals can serve as moments of awakening.

Of great value in spiritual growth is anything which helps clarify the mind. When one is confused or ignorant or deluded, one cannot make wise choices in living one's life. Fasting can awaken us to destructive patterns of consumption for our own body and for our society and planet. Fasting may help us realize we can maintain our health better without certain harmful foods. Fasting may awaken states of consciousness we have never experienced before. An enormous amount of energy goes into digesting food which, when liberated, may find other uses. One of these states of consciousness may be a sense of connection with all life, a feeling of lightness, robustness, wholeness, and peace.

The great deception of Western popular culture is that a sense of wholeness and completeness comes from literally being full, having what you want when you want it. Fasting may bring the feeling of wholeness and completeness, but by abstaining from consumption.

This is a liberating experience.

There are spiritual retreat centers one can attend where one can go to do a fast. These environments maximize the beneficial effects of fasting by helping in the fast supervision, providing a restful space, and offering spiritual practice to invite and enhance the awakening experiences. Writer Tricia Thompson, having fasted for three days at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, had these thoughts as she returned home:

I can't stop thinking why it is that humans have always fasted when we depend on food for our survival. I'm beginning to think that maybe the purpose is to separate the experience from everyday routines, to quiet the mind and body enough to notice the small feelings that usually get drowned out, and to move closer, however temporarily, to death in order to better appreciate life. It's an altered state I would enter again someday.

Beyond the personal benefits of fasting, I think are the interpersonal benefits. I'd like to continue the passage I read earlier from Isaiah:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
	to loose the bonds of wickedness,
	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 him,
	and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
	and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
	the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
	you shall cry, and he will say, "Here I am!"

Unitarian Universalists have rejected the vision of God as a King demanding tribute from his servants. We have rejected the vision of God as a needy despot who requires our adoration to feel almighty. We have rejected the vision of God as the supreme justice who rewards the righteous and damns the sinner. Yet the guidance offered by Micah in chapter six speaks powerfully of the right relationship to that which is beyond us:

With what shall I come before the Lord,
	and bow myself before God on High?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
	with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?
	with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
	the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

God has shown you what is good;
	and what does the Lord require of you
	but to do justice, and to love kindness,
	and to walk humbly with your God?

So if you choose to join with our Christian sisters and brothers in fasting during Lent, may we do so humbly, in kindness to your body, and to create opportunities to do justice. As for a U.U. fasting day? I'll leave that proclamation to the quiet voice of inner wisdom within each of us.

Copyright (c) 1995 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore, All Rights Reserved.