Like many of you, I am sure, I have known too many young women with eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorders to talk blithely about fasting from food in a religious context. For many people, an invitation into the religious practice of fasting is an invitation into shame, cascading cycles of deprivation and indulgence, and a belief that their worthiness in God’s eyes depends on looking [or eating] a certain way.
Yet, at the same time, I believe in the religious value of “fasting”—as long as it is understood more broadly than merely giving up sweets or meat or alcohol. Marjorie Thompson, in her excellent book Soul Feast, says the following: “…the discipline of fasting has to do with the critical dynamic of accepting those limits which are life-restoring” [80]. She argues that we live in a culture that tells us we can have it all, be all, do all—and those messages drive us to push and work ever harder, crowding out others (and God) as we center our own needs and desires—never satisfied, and unable to stop, rest, and accept our own limitations. Sound familiar?
In this way, “fasting” from the things that possess us by controlling our time and attention—shopping, scrolling, binging [on Netflix, food, whatever]—creates space for God to enter in and transform us. Thompson writes, “Fasting is not primarily a discipline through which I gain greater control over my life, but one through which God gains access to redirect and heal me in body, mind, and spirit” [84]. Fasting invites God to do a new thing within us: to cleanse our hearts, renew our spirits, and restore us in joy.
Let me conclude with one more quote from Thompson. She cites Gerald May, who reflects, “St. Augustine once said that God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them” [82]. The Lenten discipline of fasting calls us to let go of the things to which we are so desperately clinging, and with open hands and open hearts, receive the lavish gifts God bestows upon us.
