Lent is good for reminding us what we can live without. I was out of town until Saturday night last week. Saturday is grocery day. I do the grocery shopping, which means that the groceries didn't get "shopped." Okay, we did pick up a few essentials on Sunday afternoon, but I did this in a quick five-minute run through Kroger. It wasn't my usual 60 minute trip.
So far, we haven't starved. I made three meals last week. The first was "Dave's Spicy Black Bean Soup" (a secret, much coveted, recipe I came up with myself), Macaroni and Beans, and Lentil Soup. All three are still sitting in our fridge. I'll probably have to swing by Kroger's one more time to get some milk for the kids, but aside from that, it looks like we're set until Saturday. In other words, we've needed a little more than half the groceries we normally do. (As an added bonus, I've spent less time in the kitchen, which is partly the point, I guess.)
Hey! Did anybody notice we're in a recession? We got into this recession for a lot of reasons. One of them was that we thought we needed more than we did, so we spent more than we made. In a consumer-driven economy like ours (was) Lent says, "Don't believe it!" Practicing a little restraint in one area of our lives can have added benefits in other areas, if we reflect on it. Yes, Virginia, you can live without that Plasma TV.
Some of my Protestant friends agree with me that, as a society, we generally need less than we think we need. "Why," they ask, "don't we just live this way all the time? Why do we need a special time of year called Lent to be frugal?" My response is, "How's that working out for you?" We like to talk a good game about restraint, self-control, and moderation, but really most of us are pretty hypocritical about it. There is a wide gap between how we say we should live and how we actually do live (Lent is good for reminding us of that as well). I say 40 days before Easter ain't half bad.
Lent is a school in frugality. The lack of satiety reminds us of our gluttony. Some people can go all year eating beans and rice. I call them monks. The rest of us can live with less only for shorter periods (which is not to say that the monk is necessarily holier than the rest of us; he just lives differently). I am not suggesting that the Orthodox calendar is bulimic, that we live by cycles of binging and purging. The fact is that most of us (middle class Americans) binge all the time. Rather, I would like to think – or at least hope and pray – that the purging we do at Lent makes us binge just a little less the rest of the year.
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Actually, the desert fathers thought that fasting led directly to the binge. Which is why they ended up not doing it (or at least, not abstaining from food totally). Sorry for the depressing news.
I've always been curious about the theology of fasting. It must be something more than just finding out what we don't need? We do after all need food...
Augustinian,
First, just for clarification, this is not a blog where I have theological debates. This is a break from me having theological debates, a place where I try to be spiritual or devotional or something. Second, I'll try not to be too depressed, mostly because I'm not sure what you are driving at. I'm not sure what you mean by fasting or if you know what it means in the context of the Orthodox Church (of course the desert fathers didn't give up food altogether, because if they did they'd be dead). I agree that fasting is certainly about more than teaching us what we don't need, but it is about that too, don't you think? Look at me! Now I'm having a theological debate!
Well, I don't just read the desert fathers for their academic worth, but I don't divide theology from devotions quite as neatly as you either!
What I'm getting at is this: early Christians did fast for whole days and even a week at a time for a bit, but then stopped because it lead to binge eating afterwards.
Instead, they ate a specific amount every day. No surprises, no excitement. It's a much more difficult exercise, I think (having tried fasting too much in the past).
Personally, I wonder whether fasting is important because it both gives us courage and makes us painfully aware of what we actually DO need.
(In the interests of building one another up...)
Andy
Point taken. Naturally devotion (like prayer) is theology and theology should be devotional. I was referring to theology in its academic mode, with lots of rhetorical posturing and such. Mea culpa.
As I suspected, we are talking about two different kinds of fasting, which is why I didn't quite understand your point. I'm not sure which "early Christians" you are talking about. I am aware that some ascetics stopped eating and drinking, but the problem for them was not binging but dying. So I'd like your source so that I can learn more about this.
The Orthodox Fast during Lent is not a complete fast or any kind of suspension of eating. We eat less and we avoid certain kinds of food, mostly animal products and alcohol on some days. The purpose of this fasting is not to punish ourselves or to express sorrow over our sins. The point is, in fact, self-discipline, learning to conquer pride by restricting our most fundamental impulse, namely the desire to eat. So, every growl of the stomach becomes a reminder to pray.
There may be a little bit of "binging" afterward, mostly in Bright Week and in some traditions (mine) to Ascension (though that's optional). We eat more meat. But, in a way, this becomes an extended Paschal Feast (when the Bridegroom is not with us, then we will fast again). After the Paschal Eucharist we eat basketfulls of meat and cheese into the wee hours, cracking eggs and saying "Christ is Risen" to each other. I would say the "binging" isn't extreme. It's a celebration, after all. Food takes on a religious significance.
We need food, but not as much as we think we do. Part of my "academic" research is about whether learning to "control the appetites" spills over into other acts of consumption as well.
One exception: there is a total fast before Eucharist, but that's in keeping with the earliest practices of the church as far as I can tell, and it doesn't apply to children, pregnant women, or the sick. Basically we skip breakfast.
By the way, Andy, it seems there are only two degrees of separation between us. We may even have met. Anthony Smith is a friend of yours? Dave Belcher? Tony Baker, maybe? Adam Kotsko? Nathan Kerr?
And please do pass along your source for Christian binging. I've never heard that before and would like to know more about it.
Good call. The references are Agathon's 20th and Poemen's 31st saying in the Greek alphabetical Apophthegmata Patruum; the 49th and 63rd letters in the Barsanuphius and John correspondance; Evagrius Foundations of the Monastic Life 10, and severe fasting is also discouraged in his On Thoughts 35 and the Excerpts 2.
Personally, I have discovered the need to fast more recently specifically because I notice how much I fear it. But I wonder whether fasting doesn't also cover the other extreme too: bringing us back from our ideal, even virtual dreams of coherence and independence, to our messy and necessary dependence upon creation. In other words: consumption is not the only evil.
But don't ask me for a reference for that: it's just a general impression based on my reading of the early Christian ascetics.
Yes, we do have friends in common then: I know of all those people, but have only really had contact with Anthony.
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