If that honey would come back,

We would throw such a party.

Drink and cook the prodigal son;

Fondue forks for everybody.

They Might Be Giants, “Hot Cha”

 

[Dear Reader: This is the third in a series on the vices as the Desert Fathers understood them. To get the most out of this offering, please read parts one and two first.]

I went on a three-day fast once in college; I’d rather not say much about why, but let’s just say there was a girl involved. I ate nothing from Friday through Sunday, a span which overlapped my weekend youth ministry 100 miles from my dorm room. I stayed with a host family those weekends, and when they asked why I was fasting I really couldn’t explain myself very well. The fact was that I had no idea what I was doing.

I had it in my mind then that fasting was something you did to demonstrate to God that you were serious about what you were praying for. I couldn’t see then that I was treating God like some stone-age idol who grudgingly bestows favors on those who grovel the lowest or who offer up sufficiently-painful sacrifices. I also couldn’t see that my attention was much too much on what I wanted, which blinded me to any hope of discerning or even wanting what God wanted. Nor could I really see then how much my clumsy attempt at a spiritual discipline was more a prideful exercise in self-congratulation: Look at what I’m doing.

Coming out of that 72-hour famine I knew that much about it wasn’t right, but struggled to understand why. (That’s not to say that God didn’t do what only he does by making something worthwhile out of that mess; my prayers were very much answered, which I am better for despite making a hash of understanding it for a long time.) But having experimented with what not to do, it was a long time before I chose to come back around to the subject of fasting and try to understand what it is, how to do it, and why it matters. A trip to the desert helped me to see what I didn’t see before.

 

Fast Like an Egyptian

For the Egyptian monks, gluttony could take many forms that might seem innocuous from our distance in time and culture. Overeating, of course, qualified as gluttony to them just as much as to us. But considering the monks’ simple diet, indulgence in fancier foods undercut the principle of being satisfied with and thankful for our daily bread. And eating outside defined mealtimes, or even excessive anticipation of meals, were also considered gluttony. The reasons for this are all matters of the heart and motives of the monks, not merely their actions. An unwillingness to be satisfied with simple foods in sufficient quantity at appropriate times suggested that a monk—body, mind, and soul—was controlled by his stomach, not the other way around.

“We should not believe that mere fasting from visible food can suffice for our perfection of heart and purity of body if a fasting of the soul has not also been joined to it.”

John Cassian

So the monks practiced a simple diet, though the foods could vary by region, by house, or even by the individual. John Cassian describes a common diet in the desert as being two “biscuits” a day, though it is not entirely clear how big they were. Such bread might be supplemented with beans, fruit, or vegetables, though these might be omitted on certain days as part of a fast. The most self-disciplined monks learned such contentment with a simple diet as to consider greens boiled with salt to be a delicacy. And since cooking required wood and wood was scarce in the desert—occasionally requiring the sacrifice of a fruit tree—many of the monks learned to be content with food such as simple fruits and raw lentils that required either minimal cooking or none at all.

Care was also taken to limit eating strictly to defined mealtimes. Grazing between meals by helping oneself to a pear dangling from a tree next to a walking path or munching on some peas while tending the common garden were considered not just a violation of the fast. It was an offense against all the brothers or sisters of that house from whom such a snack was considered to have been taken. Among cenobites (common-life monks, as opposed to solitaries or hermits), eating was either done in community or not at all.

This all seems very Spartan from our vantage point, but the complete picture also requires knowing that there was room in the lives of the monks for feasting. The arrival of friends and other visitors was occasion to supplement the regular diet with special treats. These might include extra oil for the bread, vegetables that were not normally eaten, fruits more exotic than the norm, or even meat. It was also not only accepted but expected to temporarily halt a fast, even one which was accompanied by a vow, in order to show proper hospitality to guests by sharing a meal. (Cassian tells how a host once chastised him for not eating enough of what was put in front of him. The old man was welcoming his seventh guest of the day and eating his seventh meal as a result, and roughly suggested that if he still had room, so did Cassian.) Such a feast may not look much like the spread at a Super Bowl party, but it shows that community was valued more highly than fasting and that fostering community in Christ was important enough to temporarily step outside the normal bounds of a simple diet. Fasting existed for the monks, not the monks for the fast.

The details of how the monks fasted, however, is useful mostly for context. What really matters is understanding why they fasted. Cassian is very flexible on the methods and rigidity of fasting, provided that such methods and rigidity serve one purpose: “That no one, according to the measure of his own capacity, be burdened by voracious satiety” (Institutes 5.5.2). In less flowery language, the whole idea is to not want food more than one wants God. This is important in and of itself, but also (as Cassian goes on to warn) because undue satisfaction from food dulls the body, mind, and heart in such a way that they are opened to desire other things apart from or above God.

 

The Way to My Heart Is Through My Stomach

By way of reminder, I read this dusty old stuff not because I want to become a latter-day monk but because I am trying to reclaim valuable principles from our distant spiritual ancestors that have been forgotten or discarded with time. And considering what Cassian has to say about gluttony and the other vices has helped me think more deliberately about my relationship with God and with what God has given me.

What makes the desire for food (both in quality and quantity) tricky is that food is necessary for life and has been given to us by God for our use and benefit. So food is not a bad thing in and of itself; really, as is often the case with the vices, how we use God’s gifts is what is good or harmful, not the gifts themselves. But like water (which is necessary for life) and fire (which provides the necessities of light and warmth), the food that is necessary and beneficial can also cause great destruction if used carelessly.

It is worth remembering, as Cassian reminds, that Sodom was not condemned in Ezekiel 16:49 for drunkenness or sexual deviancy but for, among other things, “eating her bread in excess.” Sodom’s gluttony was inexorably bound up in her pride and greed, fueling them and being fueled by them, until not ten men could be found in the city who could discern right from wrong or who cared about the difference. The challenge for me is to handle this necessity for life in a way that keeps it in proper perspective and does not steal my allegiance from God alone.

But remedies must be carefully considered. It is a parody of fasting to rigorously refuse to eat as an exercise in self-proving, only to pig out once the clock has hit zero. Fasting of this kind not only misses the point, but turns the soul inwardly in pride rather than outwardly towards God in humility. Cassian prescribes careful daily moderation in eating as something that will develop humility, as opposed to rigid abstinence done for the wrong reasons and with unhelpful results. “Even the strictest fasts are nullified when a period of relaxation and abundance follows them, and they immediately descend into the vice of gluttony. Better is a reasonable and modest daily repast than harsh and lengthy fasts every now and again. Immoderate fasting is capable not only of destroying the steadfastness of the mind but also, due to bodily weariness, of emasculating the efficacy of prayer” (Institutes 5.9).

The goal of fasting is not merely to fast, and it is a waste if accompanied by resentment for what is being missed or eagerness to overindulge later. Fasting is a means to an end: to want what Jesus wants and to put it into practice. Cassian relies heavily on Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27: “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” The idea behind fasting is that my body serve me as I serve God, not that I should be enslaved to the excessive desires of my body.

But even this bodily self-discipline is not the end goal. For one thing, it can too easily become a source of pride: Look at what I have accomplished. But more than that, the self-discipline gained from being freed from the slavery of gluttony can then be put into practice in more challenging spiritual pursuits. The bodily self-discipline of fasting, he argues, is the easiest to learn (you’re welcome for that bit of encouragement) and becomes a template for the spiritual self-discipline required to address stronger vices like lust, greed, or anger.

I should take care that my enjoyment of what God has given me never takes place apart from what brings glory to God.

Cassian compares the slavery of the body as a result of gluttony to the slavery of the mind and heart through the other vices; just as the body can be weakened and damaged by junk food, so can the mind and heart be corrupted by the “delightful” but “miserable nourishment” of envy, anger, and pride. “We should not believe that mere fasting from visible food can suffice for our perfection of heart and purity of body if a fasting of the soul has not also been joined to it….Every desire and wandering of the feckless heart is a kind of sustenance for the soul, supplying it with harmful foods but thereafter leaving it destitute of heavenly bread and of solid nourishment” (Institutes 5.21.1-3).

 

What I’m Learning

Ben Franklin joked (actually, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t joking) that wine (not beer, as recent folklore tries to insist) is proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy. I’m pretty sure that Cassian would not have said such a thing about wine, nor do I think he would have suggested that God has given us food for anything other than necessity.  If he were to allow for the idea that God gave us food for our enjoyment and pleasure, I am almost certain he would caution that the risks of forgetfulness are too great and we are too likely to lose ourselves in eating and drinking for pleasure to truly thank and glorify God in our enjoyment of it. I’m not buying everything he is selling…though I would not argue that the risk isn’t present, especially amidst the embarrassment of material riches available in modern western culture. But while I might quibble with the Desert Fathers about methods and rigidity, I think the principle still holds: I should take care that my enjoyment of what God has given me never takes place apart from what brings glory to God.

So, to repeat a theme, the proper response when I discover the evidence of gluttony in my life is not emotional self-flagellation. While it is understandable to be disappointed in myself for failing to live up to my highest ideals, and while such disappointment is evidence of my best intentions, to succumb to the unholy trio of guilt, shame, and self-loathing is exactly the wrong response…and precisely what the Enemy wants me to do. They mire me in the works trap, in a prison of performance, in which I am convinced I can never please God without checking off the right boxes on some cosmic “to-do” list. In distorting my view of God and his love and grace, they trick me into separating myself emotionally and spiritually.

Nor is the proper response to throw myself into some activity that has the wrong focus and a counterproductive outcome. There are a lot of reasons to watch what I eat, not the least of which is that I could stand to lose at least twenty pounds. But watching what I eat so I can feel better about myself is not a good enough reason, and maybe not even a good reason. Replacing gluttony with vainglory and pride undermines the whole point of fasting as a spiritual discipline.

No, the proper response when I discover that gluttony has crept in is to recognize the signal that I have allowed something (food, in this case) to be a greater object of my desire than God. Since that’s not what I want, I can take corrective measures by God’s grace to restore my self-discipline. The idea is neither to prove myself to God nor to punish myself for my failings, but simply to get my head straight and my body realigned with his priorities.

The discovery of a vice’s work in my body, mind, or heart is an opportunity. Such knowledge of something that stands between me and God is welcome, because it can lead to real repentance from something clear and well-defined. It is the recognition of a choice before me: Do I want my will, or do I genuinely want God’s?

Next Blahg: Lust. I know you won’t want to miss it.

photo credit: pixabay.com