with Lent approaching I've been thinking about what disciplines I might engage with... and I've been really challenged about fasting for some time, so I piped up in a hOME meeting that I'd like to make a commitment to fasting with other people - as I've been so rubbish at it in the past... not only woosing out, but also getting my knickers in a twist as to why I'm doing it. This provoked a really interesting conversation with another member of hOME about fasting and eating disorders - and how not to provoke the latter by engaging in the spiritual discipline of fasting - this is a discussion we've had before in the girl's discipleship group I've been part of in hOME... it's fascinating to me that very little is written about this - it's not really mentioned to my knowledge in classics about spiritual disciplines (like Celebration of Discipline or The Spirit of the Disciplines) perhaps this is because they are written by men, older men at that?
the only useful thing I found on the web was this article, which to be fair is pretty good (less spelling mistakes!;) - I especially liked his point that 'Christian fasting does not set abstinence as the goal, but rather abstains from some things in order to feast on God'...
2 comments:
I'd not thought about it. Perhaps for a person with a history of eating disorders, fasting is not an appropriate discipline? There are, after all, many other options.
we talked about this a bit in paul mac's huddle last week. he said sometimes food fasts are inappropriate for some women for that reason. he said one of the points of fasting is that you're saying no to one appetite, which makes it easier to say no to other appetites. he gave an example of someone he knows who fasts food in order to deal with sexual desire - if he's able to say no to his appetite for food, he's more able to say no to inappropriate sexual desires. so paul made the suggestion that, if there's some appetite which you feel is controlling you, then find a different appetite which you have some control over and deal with that. (hope that makes sense. it's probably worth mentioning that our appetites aren't inherently bad - we're meant to want food for example, i think it's just when our appetites contol us that it becomes a problem)
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