Spirituality through Subtraction

We’re over halfway through Lent. And to be honest, I’m ready for it to be over. I talked a little bit about it in my last post, but I’ve given some things up, I’m reading a book, and I’m fasting from food during daylight hours one day a week.

Some conversation around fasting has occurred in my circles, I have processed through some of these thoughts a bit, and I wanted to share them with you.

The conversation has centered around the basic question of “why is fasting not commonplace?”

Fasting is difficult – Let’s just be really shallow and honest – fasting from food is hard. Physically it is difficult. But, for me, it is more of a psychological thing. I enjoy eating food. I run a lot and so I burn a lot of calories and have to support an active metabolism, so to go from eating 3500 or so calories a day, to eating a little bit before the sun rises and then a little bit after it sets, is difficult.

Fasting is supposed to be secret – Right there in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, if you go around bragging about how awesome you are for fasting then you won’t receive anything besides some hollow praise – no real reward. And so we have made our fasting (or lack-thereof) secret and we aren’t encouraging others with our example or being encouraged by other’s examples. And since we aren’t supposed to talk about it and stuff, we are secreting it out of our lives. Who is gonna know anyways?

Fasting is physical – When we think of spirituality we think of our Spirit. When we think of sin we often think of our flesh – our bodies – our physicality. It makes sense. After all, holiness is ethereal and other-worldly. And my physicality? Well, that just seems to get me into trouble.  Because fasting – depriving the body of what it needs and craves – is primarily physical there seems to be a disconnect. Fasting, from a purely physical standpoint, can be a spiritual act without trying to spiritualize it. Offering/sacrificing our body and its callings – growing stronger while growing weaker – is spiritual.

Fasting is subtraction – We often associate spirituality with addition. Pray more, give more, etc… But, fasting is spirituality through subtraction, which feels different and difficult. There are a lot of loose-end thoughts I have along this line of thinking. But I think I’ll leave this where it is. It just doesn’t seem natural to subtract to be more spiritual. But, to quote Meister Eckhart, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”

So, these are some of the reasons why I think that fasting has fallen out of fashion. Like I said earlier, I am ready for Lent to be over. But, I do want to try and continue fasting(after a little bit of recovery time – of course!). 

I would love to hear your thoughts about fasting as well.