Raised in a culture of Lenten self-denial, I learned to give things up. Childhood friends gave up sweets, but candy was in short supply in my household (no need to feel sorry for me, we had a lot of other sugar opportunities!). So, I gave up the most important thing to me at the time: my pillow. As an adult I can’t recreate my reasoning, but I have a sweet spot for that earnest 10 year old who, loving the comfort of her pillow, ‘offered it up’ without understanding the theology of fasting.
I lost that Lenten habit somewhere along the way and have tried other paths through the 40 days. I subscribed to Lenten meditation daily emails (I especially recommend Richard Rohr). I routinely attended evening prayer with the monks of Saint John’s Abbey. I was inspired by the wisdom of Joan Chittester, an American Benedictine sister and theologian who offers a developmental practice: ‘Lent,’ she writes, ‘is about becoming, doing, changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.’ I have found all of these spiritually enriching and sustaining.
Then, recently my friend Rumi (13th c. Sufi Mystic) has made me reconsider fasting, not to give up my pillow perhaps, but to do without to make space for something new.
There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes . . . . if the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you run up the steps
in front of you . . . .
A new song and a new energy – isn’t that what I need this Lenten season? May it be so.
Annette Atkins
P.S. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
