Feasting & Fasting

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

—Romans 12:1

The word that helps me these days is fasting, although I’ll plead permission to use it loosely. I have fasted strictly, as a spiritual discipline, consuming only broth and juice for a certain amount of time. But I’m using the word fasting these days as an opposite term to feasting—yin and yang, up and down, permission and discipline, necessary slides back and forth along the continuum of how we feed ourselves.

Maybe certain people can develop a food perspective that they maintain seamlessly twelve months a year. Good for them. Maybe that’s something I’ll be able to do when I’m all grown-up and filled with moderation and wisdom. Probably not, though. I think I just might be one of those people who will always need some guardrails along the way.

I love the feasting part of life. I don’t want Thanksgiving without stuffing or Christmas without cookies and champagne. I don’t want to give up our family tradition of deep-frying everything we can think of on New Year’s Eve. But I’m learning that feasting can only exist healthfully—physically, spiritually, and emotionally—in a life that also includes fasting.