Okay. Here’s the deal. I want to talk about fasting.

I want to talk about what the reward is.

I want to talk about this incredibly cool image that God paints in Isaiah 58 about fasting not being about being selfish and simply not eating the food you have, but about sharing a meal with people who don’t have food. I would love to consider the irony that a person fasting might actually eat. Isaiah talks not about giving up food, but giving up reputation to be eating with the people that no one else will eat with.

It’s not, according to God, about lying around feeling weak, but it’s about actively breaking bonds, taking the time that you would spend on eating and researching injustice or breaking up fights or writing letters to the local foodbank.

It’s not about reveling in my ability to choose to not eat, but it’s about helping people who don’t have the freedom to decide anything about anything, the people who are trapped in all kinds of bondage.

I would love to talk about the fact that the people who pursue active fasting are told by God that they can call out to him, and he will listen to them. He will hear them and will choose to not listen to the people who are involved in showy fasting, the kind that gets attention for the suffering that it inflicts on the faster.

I would love to examine things we can fast from other than food, what ways we could pursue justice. I would love to spend time working through all these things.

But I keep needing to look at my email in the odd chance that something will show up. And I keep checking my twitter feed to see if someone responded. And there are so many things I have to do, things that I cannot give up. For anything.

From Learning a new routine. Reading the Sermon on the Mount a little bit at a time