Fasting in a dieting culture

I'm fasting now because it's Lent and well, fasting is what I do during Lent. This year I'm in closer contact daily with people because I work full-time, which means a greater number of people know that I'm fasting. CDS is a Christian school, primarily protestant, so everyone is familiar with Lent more or less and with the practice of giving something up but a fast like the one I'm doing--essentially vegan, no olive oil, no alcohol--is pretty foreign.

It's been interesting to see how people react to this news. It strikes me how much their reactions spring out of dieting culture. This is ultimately jarring because there is no dieting appropriate reason for me to do this fast. And I refuse to pretend like losing weight, getting healthy, living longer, or anything else is the reason I'm doing this.

So far, I've had people ask me how my diet is going. I correct them. I'm fasting. I'm not dieting. The distinction seems lost on most. Other reactions draw attention to eating disorders and the idea that I might hurt myself in some way by doing this. On the other hand, I also get comments about the potential by-products. You might still lose weight, they say hopefully. This will clean out your system. In fact, when I mention the benefit of fasting--even a comment like, I get a lot out of fasting--usually prompts the sort of response that correlates benefit with the kind of benefit one gets from dieting.

I come away from these conversations feeling like I understand something about how the person I'm talking to relates to food and her own body. And I also feel we're limited by the discourses of dieting and health that surround us.

The fact of the matter is that I have lost some weight every time I've done this fast for Lent. For the most part, I gain it back when I start eating normally again. I don't really have anything to say about whether this is a super healthy way to eat or whether it's somehow good for my system or cleans me out in some general sense. I only know that improving my body has absolutely nothing to do with my fasting. Less than nothing. In fact, the moment my fast becomes about dieting, it disappears and I'm no longer fasting.

Last year I wrote that fasting is about mortality. It is. It's about character failings--being kind and patient when I don't feel kind and patient. It's about failure and how I cope with it. It's about all these things and some more things.

If it's about my body, it's about weakening my body and bringing it under control of reason. It's about taming desires by exercising control when my body wants me to eat. It's about saying to my body, I know you want food because that keeps you alive and that's why you're hungry but no, we're not. Because I am in charge and you aren't.

At root that's about bringing body and spirit into proper relationship so that I can practice love more deeply and more fully, so that I can more fully reflect the image of God. So when I say it's good for me, I mean it's good for me. I don't mean it will make my body more healthy in some way that will allow me to live longer or feel better. I mean it benefits me by changing how my body and mind work together. When I'm fasting, I recognize all the ways they are out of balance.

And this lack of balance, my friends, is the root of sin. And I am weeping for my sins. That benefits me, too. Just not in any way that can be accessed through the language of health, body image, or dieting.