Skip to main content

Friday Fast #1

A note up front: in writing this post, I'm not able to follow the author's instruction to not reveal your fast to others.

Today, we begin the first of the Friday Fasts the author describes.  When I read the subtitle, "Drink Only Water (Eat as Usual), I thought I'd have no troubles with this one!  Most days I do drink only water.  I rarely drink coffee or other hot drinks, and almost every meal is accompanied by a glass of water.  Each day, I carry around my First Pres water bottle with, you guessed it, just water in it.   So, no problem for me.  I'll get "credit" for this fast without even trying!  Then I read further and found this instruction: "Drink only water, without ice and without flavoring. Hot or warm water is okay."  Darn.  I love ice water, the colder the better.  I'm supposed to drink warm or even hot water?  Not my cup of, er, water...but I'm going to do it today.  I'm going to focus on the big question the author poses: "What am I truly thirsting for in my life right now?"  I'm going to seek what she describes:  "By making a water fast, you can really notice the empty, thirsty places within you and purposefully invite God into them: your own inner deserts in need of God’s living water."

Will you join me?  If you do, what do you find yourself thirsting for?  Do you find God's living water rushing into your deserts?  I'd love to read your comments.

--Eric

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pondering the journey

Betty Hollister writes Judi assured me this week would be easier—more about a journey, maybe even something as simple as a walk in nature.  Ok.  Maybe. I admitted to her that even though I didn’t “like” the week of “Solitude and Struggle,” it did make me think, and I liked that.  And, the thinking, of course, didn’t stop this week.   Monday’s lesson reminded us how Jesus sought solitude by walking away from the crowds after periods of “greatest exertion or emotional distress. ”  That made complete sense.  If Jesus, fully human, but also fully divine, needed time alone to talk to His father and renew his strength to heal the next in line or preach to the next crowd that made complete sense.  Even Tuesday’s suggestions about labyrinth walks to “get lost in God’s creation” made sense to me.  Then, I read about the “blue-gray-green monks” who turned that color due to hardship and fasting and Mary of Egypt who wandered for decades alone in th...

Holy Saturday

From Rachel Matthews - Today I have been chopping, measuring, mixing, cooking, mixing some more, kneading, baking, waiting, waiting, tasting, arranging, cleaning, preparing.....and preparing....for guests. It is what you do at a funeral. Either you are preparing to serve and comfort the bereaved or, as the bereaved, you are preparing to receive the community, the family, the loved ones to walk with you to the grave and back again. Holy Saturday feels like the days before a funeral. Suspended between death and life, you just carry on. You work, as usual, but not. That's what the women who loved the Rabbi were doing: preparing the spices, arranging the body (Christ's body), wrapping, loving and weeping, and waiting, and waiting and preparing....for guests. I am giddy thinking about the surprise that awaited them - the Guest!! And, I am giddy waiting for our guests to come to our home. My boys won't be here, so there is grief. I miss them so much. But, the new Amer...

Friday Fast #2

I have to admit that I have not been looking forward to this fast from sound from the moment I read about it. While I am an introvert, needing time to recharge by myself, I also really don’t like extended periods of silence. I often have the TV on around the house, listen to audiobooks and podcasts and amuse myself by watching videos at my desk over the lunch hour. I am going to do my best to avoid all of that today.   In fact, because we had invited some friends to go to the movies this evening, I started my fast from extraneous sounds last night. I felt a bit cheated, not getting to watch the Olympics and the US women win the gold in hockey, but really do they need another viewer? Why does missing something on TV bother me so? We don't have a DVR at home, so when I miss it I usually just end up skipping a show, but maybe I watch too much TV.  Am I way too caught up in other people’s lives and accomplishments? Do I need to watch the news every day? What could I be doing ...