Pastor's Note

WHEN BODY AND SOUL MEET
February 10th, 2008

I believe in fasting. It is the point at which body and soul meet.
There are many types of fasting including foregoing food from sun-up to sun-down as Muslims do during Ramadan. Christian fasting varies. Usually it means not eating between meals and having only one full meal per day.
What happens when one fasts for several days – or for the forty days of lent – is that the giving up of food no longer becomes the focus. Admittedly, when we are used to eating whenever we are hungry, the first few days can have major distractions. Once one is in the groove of fasting, however, a cleansing seems to take place. Both the body and the soul become more open to something more.
Over the centuries, many saints learned that in fasting, not responding to the body’s cravings, frees the soul from its own hunger. That’s when the soul can seek the Lord more unencumbered. Meanwhile, the body itself usually feels stronger and functions better.
I suspect many people fast simply as a sacrifice; others do it as a way of losing weight. Neither of those motives is bad. But fasting can mean so much more as it helps us soaring above our normal self-indulgent tendencies.