Healthy Hunger

Today I thought I would share some more of my reflections on food, fasting and hunger. 

Fasting to me is not just about giving up chocolate or coffee, or even skipping meals. For me it also is about making a mental adjustment towards eating. I use the encouragement of Lent to eat the way I always should: fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, natural sweeteners.

When I stop eating junk I learn to love real food. When I start enjoying real food, I stop wanting junk; I hunger for the healthy stuff. It takes a while to get the sweet and salty cravings to go away, but they do, and then highly processed food just tastes yucky.

Even food that it is good for me, however, is not good to eat all the time. I still need to learn to allow myself to get hungry.

As I have said earlier, being willing to be hungry is for me a matter of faith, of faithfulness, of response to the call of God. It is an outward sign of my obedience, of my submission to the discipline of God. It also is a response to the hunger of the world. 

What I consume involves money. Where did I get all that food to eat? I bought it, of course. I used my resources to feed, and sometimes over-feed myself. It is not too much of a stretch to conclude that every bite I eat that I don’t need is a bite someone else, some genuinely hungry person, is denied.

The cost of my overeating is not just for the food. Too much food can have a negative impact on my health. No problem, I’ll just go to the doctor, get pills, use extra resources for my health care. My clothes don’t fit anymore? I’ll buy new ones. I’ll buy diet books, or special diet foods that cost more than real, non-processed food. All this for me, all this to indulge me: all this because I didn’t want to feel hungry.

But… if I can allow myself to be hungry, I can make changes to the way I use my resources. I can and must redirect my surplus to those who are truly in need, who truly are hungry. I see that as the real intent behind the practices of Lent: to help me lay down my comfortableness, pick up my cross, follow Christ, and care for my brothers and sisters throughout the world. For this I must be willing to experience hunger, even every day.

Hunger and Pain

Tomorrow my sister is having knee replacement surgery. While knee surgery does not seem to me to be as drastic as some other types, it is in fact fairly invasive and her recovery will be lengthy. But if all goes according to plan, the treatment she has chosen will relieve her of the pain she has endured for some time.

We like to be relieved of pain! That is good and natural (to seek pain is an indication that something is fundamentally disordered). Of course, our culture has taken pain avoidance to great heights. We run to the medicine cabinet at the slightest twinge. "Never have pain" is almost as much of a cultural mantra as "never be hungry!"

I titled this blog "be hungry" in part to proclaim that hunger is a good thing, a necessary thing. I am referring to spiritual hunger, but the idea originated in my observations about our cultural obsession with food. Most so-called diet "plans" declare that if you follow their regimen you will "never be hungry." As someone who has to be vigilant about food - if I don't want to gain weight - I learned long ago that the only way to stay at a healthy weight is to be willing to be hungry sometimes. Being hungry is a sign that I am actually in charge of what I eat, not driven by my impulses, not eating out of boredom or anxiety.

I think that sometimes we are in so much of a hurry to avoid pain - emotional as well as physical - that we miss what it has to teach us. I am not saying "don't take the ibuprofen!" But I am thinking about the headache or heartache that does not abate right away. Maybe (and I am being tentative here because these things are difficult to express) it is an opportunity to be softened; to go "on a diet," if you will, from our obsession with personal comfort, and to let the difficulty teach us how to share in the suffering of others.

Love, Pray 2

News received in the last 12 hours:

• A daughter and son-in-law: robbed in a terrifying situation while traveling in a foreign country. (They are shaken but okay. Same goes for parents.)

• A beloved elder relative: cancer, inoperable, prognosis unknown at  this time.

And yesterday I was wondering what kind of love would lead me to pray more. I would write more but I'm going to pray. Now. Truly.

Love, Pray

One of the themes of Lent is prayer. Prayer has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Yet the idea of prayer has also always had some degree of guilt for me. Although I think I might pray more often throughout the day than many people, the guilt I have is around structured prayer time.

I was raised with the expectation that every Christian should have a "quiet time" - some time (preferably in the morning) when you spend a few minutes or more with God in prayer. I tried. It never really "took" for me - I couldn't think of what to say, or I never found a devotional book I liked, or my mind would wander. I hated to admit that I didn't do it, though, because it seemed so important (thus the guilt).

Then there was "intercession," people who would talk about praying for hours in the night, or who would get together for long, intense prayer sessions. Tried; couldn't do that either. I did much better with night devotions, a quick reading from a devotional book and a "good night God" type prayer. I am also pretty good at a simple morning offering, short spontaneous prayers throughout the day, or prayers for individuals who request it. But structured prayer times, where you sit down with the express purpose of praying for more than 30 seconds? That has always been difficult for me.

So for Lent I decided that I wanted to try to pray Evening Prayer on a regular basis (that's part of the Liturgy of the Hours, which is mostly praying the Psalms). I had gotten fairly regular with Morning Prayer, at least on the days when I am at home, but thought Lent would be the motivation I needed to add more. Instead, what has happened so far is that not only have I not done well with adding EP, but I have virtually stopped MP as well. Sigh.

Discovering this suggests to me that I am susceptible to using Lent as a personal challenge instead of a spiritual journey. By coming up with too many "must do" actions on my list, it turned prayer from an act of love into a duty, and I instinctively backed off.

I knew there might be some danger in my ambitious list, even as I developed my plan to love better. But it has taken a couple of weeks for me to discover it. I need to spend some time thoughtfully considering how I can make both structured and unstructured prayer times become part of the natural rhythm of my days, like breathing, instead of simply proving to myself I can do it. I think I need to grow in the kind of love that leads me to prayer.

Singing in the Cold

I heard a cardinal singing this morning. Plucky thing, it was only 9 degrees out! I have heard (and seen) them in the last couple of weeks, sitting at the tops of the still-naked trees, their distinctive mating call carrying far and wide - although the one this morning sounded a little less hearty than usual. It was a pleasant reminder of spring, of the renewal of all things, even when all those things are buried under nine inches of fresh snow. 

Another sign of renewal today is the celebration of the Annunciation: the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will conceive the Savior of the world. Our pastor pointed out this morning that exactly nine months from now is Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus. So while we are in the middle of fasting and praying and renouncing our attachment to things of the world, going through our own personal “death”, a little sign of hope sneaks onto the agenda, thanks to the Church calendar. New life begins, even though it is still invisible to our physical eyes.

It has been my experience that this is often the case: blessings come in the midst of despair; anguish is accompanied by mirth (I am remembering here the therapeutic laughter I shared with my siblings when we were telling stories about Mom the day after her funeral). Death is not the enemy of life, but merely its completion; sorrow does not forbid gladness. I believe that Lent is meant to teach us not to be afraid of difficulty or grief. We learn through its disciplines that we can indeed embrace the cross and still find joy. We can sing, even when it’s cold outside.

Change and Grief

I haven’t had many truly white-knuckle commutes, and today, thankfully, was not one of them. But it was close. We had nine inches of snow at home, six inches downtown. It was preceded by rain, then sleet, then ice pellets. It created a several-inches deep layer of corrugated surface on the side roads, snow and slush on the freeways: slow, sloppy and treacherous driving. All this after one of the longest, coldest, snowiest winters I can remember. Maybe it’s good that Easter is coming late this year - Spring should be here by then!

The icky drive was somehow apropos for this day, as it made it pretty much miserable all around. 

Our office is moving tomorrow. I mentioned it in another blog, because as part of Lent I really have been trying not to complain about it and I think for the most part I have succeeded. But today I realized that I am grieving, silly as it sounds. We are moving only a few blocks away from our present location, but it is across the freeway from downtown and away from the location I have worked in for nearly 15 years. Away from the skyways and long lunchtime walks inside, food courts and shops and the lunch crowd. Away from good coffee shops! And a three-block walk outside from the parking ramp to the office (remember the snow and rain and ice and sleet?) instead of a short walk indoors across the skyway. And all day long I kept thinking, “well, this is the last time I’ll do this.”

The new building is very nice, if a bit cold and hard-edged in a modern kind of way. And it may turn out to be a great change. I will adapt.

Going through this grief (which surprised me, actually) has helped me remember that change is hard for people, especially change over which they have no control. Change can be experienced as a kind of death: the end of something.

Five parishes in this area (including our own) are in the midst of a planning process that will result in change - "no change" is not an option on the table. In this case I am rather looking forward to the changes, but then I have not been part of the parish for very long. Instead I have been thinking, “what’s the matter with people that they can’t see this is an exciting opportunity?”

I was quite emotional (internally) at work this morning. I knew that it was my sadness, but because I dared not speak of the grief itself it sort of squeezed itself out in other ways: I unfortunately was rather difficult in a meeting.  

So, my Lent did not go so well today - I was crabby, after all, and I was sorely tempted to buy some french fries on the way home as comfort food (I did resist that one). But gradually I also felt that in my grieving I was experiencing, albeit in a small way, the sorrow of the Lord.  

I expect in our parishes there will be anger and resentment no matter how logical the changes are. My sad, bad day today is helping me be a bit more sensitive to the fact that for many people even small changes - like moving from one building to another a short distance away - can be tough. I hope that now I will remember that there are many expressions of grief, and be willing to bear with those who are suffering.

Other People

In my previous entry I ended with the idea that maybe we need other people for our transformation to take place. As I have been reflecting on that more I am starting to understand how true it really is.

Think about what transformation - becoming more like Christ - requires. Transformation requires us to get out of the way so that God can do his work in us. We have to empty ourselves. We have to be willing to follow Christ to the cross, where he poured out his life for all mankind.

I would venture to say that nothing empties us faster than other people. And while I would like to think that I do love God sacrificially, that love is made truly evident through my attitudes and actions on behalf of family, friends, coworkers and people I don't even know.

When I make a personal sacrifice to benefit someone else it transforms me. As I practice generosity or kindness or patience, as hard as it may be at first, eventually it becomes easier and I start to experience joy. The joy is the evidence that I am changing.

Maybe an example would help me explain: Back when I had Friday afternoons free some young girls would come to my house for sewing lessons. A couple of them needed to be picked up and dropped off. I enjoyed the hours at my house sewing, but for various reasons I resented the time running to get them and take them home. Then one day I realized that I needed to consider the providing of rides as an opportunity that God was giving me to show love to the girls and their family. 

Through the change in my thinking I came to find joy in that time in the car. I since have extended that attitude toward other “inconveniences.” That contribution to my transformation, small as it may seem, could not have happened without those girls in my life. 

They taught me to love better.