40 Day Fast: a collection of all the posts

Several people have asked me recently about my 40 day fast (a juice fast, meaning no food, just water and fruit juices) from the summer before last. I thought it might be good to make a post that would show you where you could find information about my experience during those 40 days.

I've put some notes by the posts I think are most interesting if you don't want to read 40 days of "Wow, I'm really tired and I keep forgetting stuff and I'm really tired. Also let me repeat a story I told you yesterday."


MY MOTIVATION: 40 day fast: Why would you do that?

BEFORE YOU FAST, READ THIS: Some excellent reasons not to fast.

Day 32 has a bibliography that you may find useful, as well.

Day 1.

2

3 When you're fasting but sitting in on communal meals.

4

5

6

7 Seems like I was getting a little irritable after a week of no food.

8 Don't necessarily expect a bush to catch on fire and God to speak out of it just because you're fasting.

9

10 Food God.

11

12 Processed vs. organic theology

13

14

15

16

17 Gauging your emotions: overreacting while fasting.

18

19

20 Halfway there!

21

22

23 In which I mess up trying to take a day with the Lord.

24 The true purpose of fasting.

25

26

27 Here's an honest post about how bad you feel during the fast sometimes.

28

29

30

31 Is there a big decision on the horizon?

32 A HELPFUL BIBLIOGRAPHY of fasting books and resources (with notes on each book).

33

34

35

36 Fasting together in community.

37 The discipline of God's presence.

38 "After 40 days he was hungry." Some thoughts about Jesus fasting in the wilderness.

39

40  Meeting with God on the last day of the fast at Mt. St. Helens. Also, Bigfoot. No, really.

And, for a "last laugh": A year and a half later and I can't fit into my "fasting pants."

Fasting Day 467: Twice the Man I used to be

You may recall last summer when I wrote about my forty day fast. Earlier this week I had a special moment that reminded me of my fast.

Dramatic re-enactment. 

I went to exercise before going in to work, so I threw on my workout clothes and grabbed some clothes out of the closet. After my work out I took a shower, dried off and went to put my clothes on and discovered... that I had grabbed the jeans I bought when I was fasting because all my regular clothes had become too large.

Pants meant for me when I was about forty pounds lighter.

So. It was either wear my work out clothes or find a way into those pants.

I'm happy to report that with correct breathing, impressive upper body strength to pull the button and button hole toward one another and a minimum amount of discomfort I was able to put those pants on. I looked like a rock star with painted on jeans.

Fasting Day Forty: Break-fast

 So, here we are. The end of the road.

I got up this morning and packed some juice and water and headed for Mount St. Helen's. I've been up there once before when I was spending a day in prayer and found it to be a place where I could get away from the rest of the world for a bit.

Krista and Nurse Shasta were both concerned that I was going off into the wilderness when I had almost fainted yesterday and both bound me with bold promises to make sure that I would text often to fill them in on where I was and how things were going. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that my cell service disappeared at about the same time that I passed the Sasquatch. Yes, there is a Bigfoot "Museum" near Mt. St. Helen's. Supposedly there have been some great sightings of the elusive beast in the area. All I saw was this giant statue, but you can bet I kept my eyes peeled for a real one.

One of the things that I experience at Mt. St. Helen's is a reminder of the scale of things in life. For one thing, the mountain itself used to look like this:

Mt. St. Helens the day before the eruption in 1980.

In May of 1980, the volcano erupted like so:

It erupted at about 8:30 in the morning, and ash from the plume reached Idaho by noon. It varied from 12 to 16 miles above sea level, and continued to erupt for over nine hours. Although most people had been evacuated, there were some who remained nearby who died in the aftermath of the eruption. Trees for miles around were destroyed by the eruption, the mud flows or the superheated ash. Many of them were essentially instantly petrified because there wasn't enough oxygen in the air for them to catch fire. At one ranger station I went to, they had a tree section that had been well over 1,200 years old that was uprooted in the explosion. That really struck me. A tree that outlived my ancestors, brought low by the volcano.

I took this pic the last day of my fast.

Now if you look at the volcano from the North side, this is what you see. It completely blew off the top of the mountain, and the North side of the mountain was largely destroyed. As you drive toward it, you can actually see where the edge of the tree line is, where the trees were destroyed and are coming back to life... the entire forest in that area is the same age. Now life is returning to the area and there are deer and elk and beavers and all sorts of woodland creatures making their way back to normal life near the volcano. Interestingly, the explosion creates very rich soil, so although the destruction was intense, the returning life is lush and vibrant.

I felt almost overwhelmed with the possible spiritual metaphors in the midst of all this. The grandeur and glory and might of God. The destructive power inherent in the volcano, the slow process of life's return to the once barren land, the increased fruitfulness of the new life, the people who ignored warnings about the mountain and paid the price, the fleeting nature of life, the length of a tree's life outweighing that of a human being by far.

I stopped and took some time to sketch the mountain, and though I'm not a great artist, it helped me to stop and really look at the details, to see it more carefully than I might have otherwise.

And in the midst of all this, I was waiting to hear from God.

He spoke to me in all of this... about change, and transformation and power and preparation for things to come. No great specifics, nothing that a skeptic would hear and say, "You're right that must be God." But I'll tell you this... I felt his presence throughout the day, like he was alongside me, like he was with me and speaking to me throughout, the same way that I would experience another of my friends who had come along for the day. He did say a few specific things, but they're a little personal for sharing here... suffice it to say that I heard from God, and that it was a meaningful and powerful time.

I drove home and met Krista and she and I went into Portland, and I shared with her some of the things God had said to me, and we talked about what it might mean and talked a bit about the fast and how it had gone. We went to a Thai restaurant and I ordered a salad roll... basically a Thai salad wrapped up in a rice wrapper. I don't care for them, but I knew I had a chance of this sitting well as my first meal. I have never tasted anything so good. After we had prayed and I took my last bite, I nearly started to cry. I am so happy to be eating again, and so thankful that the fast is over.

Was it worth it? God didn't say anything to me that he couldn't have said while I devoured an entire pizza. But I will say this... I wanted to hear from him more passionately than I have in a long time. He certainly had my full attention at the end. It was hard, and there were days when I hated it. But it was worth it, yes.

Now it's time to re-enter the real world. and I have to admit there is some fear and trepidation in that, too. But it's time to leave the wilderness and enter the cities of human companionship again. I look forward to sitting with you and eating a meal, and talking about it together.

Fasting Day Thirty-Nine: Penultimate day of the fast

You don't get to say penultimate very often, so you got to take advantage of that when you can.

I'm not feeling great today, so I'm not going to write much. We went to church tonight (Saturday), and I took a nap in the hammock in the afternoon. I got up from the couch to look at something the kids were doing in the hallway and came close to passing out... I had to lean up against the wall and quickly drop my head to keep from going unconscious, and it was a near thing.

Tomorrow I'm headed up to Mt. St. Helens for the end of my fast. I'm hopeful that it will be something good....

Fasting Day Thirty-Eight: "after forty days he was hungry"

I've heard a lot of people over the years talk about how, when Jesus is being tempted in the desert, the Bible says "after forty days Jesus was hungry." Usually people will say something like, "Duh, of course he was hungry after forty days."

It seems to me that it's probably a reference to a common phenomenon during extended fasts. For most people, hunger essentially goes away sometime late in the first week of fasting. I think for me it was around day six this time. For some people it will come as early as the end of day two. After this, you still have occasional hunger pains or a rumbling stomach, and certainly the occasional psychological desire for food, but your body is relatively satisfied. As I understand it, this is because your body has switched over from burning glucose to burning ketone. Essentially, instead of processing sugar from food, it's processing fat from your body.

While in ketosis (the state in which your body is burning ketone) you just aren't all that hungry. Like I said in a previous post, I'm hungrier when I'm eating than when I'm fasting. It's like my body just sort of gave up and left a note with the brain that said, "Hey, if you see if any food laying around you should grab it and eat it."

Auto cannibalism.

And that's all well and good for about forty days. Sometime between the 30th and 40th day most people hit the "emergency" level, where there's about 7% or less of the available fat for the body to burn. The body starts gearing up to "eat" muscles and, yes, your brain. At this point, no longer satisfied with a polite note to the brain, the body decides to make it clear that we've hit the emergency zone and yes, it's time to switch back to eating food rather than entering auto-cannibalism.

No one disputes this is the end of any voluntary fast. It's the moment where your body says, "Play time is over, it's time for you to eat."

My hunger came back today. It's not playing around. When your hunger comes back, it's rough. I feel the worst I've felt the whole fast, maybe the worst I've felt in my life. I can't concentrate, can't really think about anything other than making it stop... which I know is as simple as a mouth full of bread.

Which, I think, is precisely how Jesus was feeling physically when the adversary said, "If you are truly the son of God, turn these stones into bread." He was tempted when he was at his weakest, feeling his worst, his body completely coming apart. And he overcame all that and followed the path God had set before him.

I'm disappointed that my hunger has returned this early, with two days still to go, but I'm hopeful that there are good things to come....

Fasting Day Thirty-Seven: The "discipline" of God's presence

Suddenly, instead of looking at the enormous number of days stretching out ahead of me in the fast, and wondering if I’m ever going to make it to the end, I’m looking ahead and thinking how little time is left. My experience so far has been good. I’ve had a consistent time of connecting with God, and yes, I’ve been more disciplined in it than I had been before the fast, and have been reminded that in some sense the fact that I have to talk about being “disciplined” in getting time with God shows the poverty of my spiritual state.  I’m not “disciplined” in eating every day… I eat every day because it’s something I need physically, and additionally it’s something I enjoy. Any time I start talking about “needing to be more disciplined” in getting time with God, I’m saying that spending time with God is a chore and I don’t desire it.  That has shifted now. Fasting is a discipline. But I want more time with God. Not as a discipline, but because I need it and enjoy it.

I told Krista today that I need to take one more day with the Lord before the fast ends, and we made plans. On the 39^th day, which is a Saturday, we’ll go to church as a family, and on the 40^th, a Sunday, I’ll take a day by myself and go out and pray and spend time with God, then meet Krista to break my fast in the early evening.

Mmmmmm. bamboo!

Ten years ago, the only other time I did a long fast (not a full 40 days… but close to 30), I felt completely disconnected from God basically the entire fast, far more than during this fast. God was silent, purposely shut off from me. He was present but distant. Silent. On the last day of the fast, I took a long day and walked around our city (we were living in Asia at the time). I walked through strange, remote parts of the city I had never been to before.  Toward the end of the day I wanted to find a place I could be by myself, I wanted to find a “lonely place” to pray without the eyes of every person watching the white guy wandering the city. It’s not easy to find such a place when you live in a city of six million, and in a moment of desperation I found a stand of clumping bamboo outside of a hotel and I crawled into it. Once inside, it was like I was in a bamboo room. No one could see inside, and though I could hear people walking by and talking occasionally, no one could see or hear me. I started to pray and after a long time I felt that disconnection with God begin to lessen. I felt like I could hear God, but he was in another room… I could hear the sound of his voice but none of his words. I kept praying, but it didn’t get clearer. I waited there in the bamboo, silent myself, and tried to hear his voice.

Just when I was ready to give up I heard him speak clearly. The conversation was short, but for me it was significant. He didn’t tell me something. He asked me a question. He asked if I was willing to have writing be part of my service to him… more than a hobby, that it would be something he expected of me, something I would be held accountable to him for as part of my job in his service. I thought about it briefly and said yes, and then he cautioned me to think carefully before answering, and started telling me things about it that would be hard for me… that it’s often a solitary pursuit and that I would be lonely at times. That it would require discipline and hard work that thus far I hadn’t been willing to put into it. I considered those things and told him that I would be willing. It was, for me, a change in direction, a new addition to my calling, even though my vocation and day to day job weren’t changing. When I agreed to adopt this into my life, he released me from the fast. I went home and told Krista and sat at our dinner table and drank some grape juice and ate some bread and had communion, and then ate a meal. It was a month of silence from God that ended with profound communication from him. I felt relieved and exhausted. Perhaps that’s what waits in the next few days. I hope that’s true. 

Fasting Day Thirty-Six: Fasting together in community

When I was in college, one of my Catholic hall mates came to me and said that we were all going to do a fast together, and she assumed I would want to be a part of it. I shrugged and said sure, and as we talked about it, I realized that what we would actually be doing is fasting for the Muslim holy days of Ramadan. My friend Imraan is Muslim, and some of the girls (all of them Catholic, as I recall) thought that we should support his month of fasting by doing it with him (Ramadan is the month when Mohammed received the Quran, so there is a month long festival). I don’t recall that I had ever purposely fasted before, which isn’t a big surprise since it wasn’t something that was spoken about openly in evangelical Christianity, at least at that time.  Far from being a communal value, so far as I knew, fasting wasn’t something that was practiced at all in my faith community. My Catholic friend thought this was hilarious, and they kept assuring me that fasting with others was an ordinary, even laudable, thing. “It’s like Lent for Muslims,” one of my hallmates said.

During Ramadan, those participating in the fast don’t eat (or drink… or, technically, put anything in their mouth) during daylight hours. At night, families and others from the community come together after the call to prayer and eat a feast. So the month of fasting is also a month of feasting.  Every day we would fast during the daylight hours (which for me meant skipping lunch… I didn’t eat breakfast in college), and then come together at a certain point in the early evening in the cafeteria and eat together and talk about our days. I don’t remember doing the whole month… maybe the others did. But I did a few days at least, and it was really fun and deeply bonding to spend time with my friends, coming together at the end of the day and talking about our days, the experience of fasting, and enjoying our cafeteria food together.

It’s something we’re missing in my branch of Christianity. In Islam, Judaism and Catholocism there are specific times set aside for communal fasting, and early Christianity appears to have followed the Jewish pattern of fasting, with festival fasts and many people fasting for 24 hour periods about twice a week. But as prostestant Christianity broke from Catholicism, and then continued to fraction into denominations, many of our denominations jettisoned a lot of those types of practices, and Lent dropped out pretty quickly, followed eventually (I guess) by communal fasting. I think we’ve lost something significant there. Communal fasting creates a feeling of being in something together. It delineates a line around the community and shows who is in and who is out. It emphasizes our commonalities and creates a tradition and common experience, and re-focuses us on what matters most… our common commitment to following God, emphasizing that our commitment to God and to our community is more important than even our most basic needs, like food.

Interestingly enough, the culture of Campus Crusade for Christ is really “fast friendly.” Our founder, Bill Bright, did a forty day fast about once a year, and many others in the organization followed his example, so it’s really one of the only places where I haven’t felt like a stranger, an outsider or an extreme crazy person when talking about my fast. In fact, in CCC, instead of questions like, “are you crazy?” or “Why on earth would you do that?” people have asked how I’m doing or brought up their own experiences while fasting. Which made me feel – more so than at my church or other places in the Christian community – that someone understood what I was doing. It made me feel like an insider rather than a freak.

Fasting Day Thirty-Five: Taking Stock

Gah! I couldn't take it anymore. I feel so weak and tired and out of it, and I am SO SICK of juice. It's amazing that I can be this far along in depriving my body of meaningful sustenance and simultaneously wanting to never, never drink juice again.

I decided that I would make myself some vegetable stock today (which I should have been doing all along, I guess... no doubt Nurse Shasta would say so), and because I've been craving Chinese food, I made a Chinese vegetable stock from this book.

And it was amazing. Mmm. I feel warm and happy.

I couldn't figure out what "daikon" was, though, so I didn't use any of that.

Here's the recipe:
2 Tb vegetable oil
1 yellow onion (quartered and peeled)
1 Daikon (it's a vegetable, I know that much)
2 cups sliced cabbage or bok choy (I used white cabbage)
6 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 white peppercorns

* in a large saucepan over medium high heat, warm the oil and stir fry the onion and cabbage (and daikon... whatever) for about 6 minutes
* add the water and pepper and salt (pepper and salt's optional) and bring to a boil over high heat. reduce to medium low and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes
* remove from heat and strain through a sieve.
*drink it! It's good!

Fasting Day Thirty-Four: Coming out of it...

Less than a week to go, and my mind is starting to turn toward re-entry. I don't feel like I've hit whatever the purpose is for this fast, but there have been a lot of good things throughout. 

When I taught high school once upon a time, a group of my students decided to do a "40 Hour Famine"... it's a fast that some organizations encourage to make people aware of world hunger and poverty. Sometimes kids will raise money for the fast, asking people to pledge money for the number of hours they fast, and often it's done in community, so that everyone is finishing about the same time.

The students asked me to be their supervisor for the fast, which included an overnight hang out at the school at the end. Watching high schoolers fast was interesting, as they not only need more food since they're pretty much always in the middle of a growth spurt, but they also tend to be more dramatic and emotional, so there was a lot of moaning and flinging of "starving" bodies across the tables in the room we were staying in. It was a Christian school, so it was no problem to have a lot of prayer times.

Overall, the students did well, except for their fasting re-entry. The guy who organized the fast knew that "everyone will be hungry" at the end of the fast, so he ordered lots of giant pizzas. I told him that this wasn't a good idea, that they should take it slow and easy when they re-entered the world of food but he didn't care. The kids ate about an entire large pizza each and then they fell onto their backs, holding their distended stomach and groaning... pretty much exactly what they did while they were fasting except that now they had smiles on their faces. 

Nurse Shasta says that I should take as long coming out of the fast as I spent fasting... in other words, that I should spend 40 days getting back up to speed with eating again. Honestly, the thought of that makes me cringe. I don't want to spend my first few weeks eating boiled vegetables or something. Then again, it's pretty clear that my body is going to need time to re-engage with food. Krista says that the last time I did a long fast I was back to eating my regular meals within a few days. I'm guessing it will be something a little slower than that, but a bit faster than 40 days. I guess we'll see! In less than a week!

Fasting Day Thirty-Three: Father's Day

Just a reminder, these posts aren't in real time. So don't panic. 

Here's the sort of restaurant I like.

How many holidays and celebrations can there be in 40 days? Seems like there are a lot... every month and a half we're celebrating something, and then there are weddings and days in honor of this or that.  Today is Father's Day.  Our family tradition on Father's Day is that Krista and the kids take me out to a meal, but obviously that's not possible today. We'll have to reschedule! Part of the deal, of course, is that no one complains about my choice, no matter what it is!

Since a meal wasn't an option, we went to church in the morning (here's the message Pastor John preached) and then went (for the first time) to Things From Another World so I could buy myself a graphic novel on behalf of my wife and children. I chose The Umbrella Academy, which turned out to be an interesting and excellent choice. Once we got home I was sent to my hammock, where I spent the afternoon reading my comic book and then took a nap. There's not much better than a nap on the hammock with a graphic novel on your chest. 

Overall, a nice day, although the lack of food still makes it harder to regulate my emotions. But it was nice to have a day that was relaxing and enjoyable in the midst of the fast.

Fasting Day 31: Is there a big decision on the horizon?

Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyy?

Throughout this whole process, the one question I haven't been able to answer sufficiently has been, "Why are you fasting?" I don't feel like I have a good answer for that... or, at least, one that sounds good to other people. In other words, when I say, "Well, I feel like the Lord told me to do it" that leaves a lot of people uncertain. Why would the Lord tell you to do that? Did he explain why? Is it about discipline? Obedience? Greater intimacy with him? Are you seeking direction? To which I have only been able to say, sure, all those things are probably true. But it's not like God called me into his study, sat me down and said, "Son, I'd like you to stop eating for more than a month. Here's a list of all the reasons why, along with a review sheet of all the lessons I expect you to learn along the way."

Last night after the wedding we went to stay the night with our good friends Erik and Maureen York. They knew I was fasting because we had talked about it at the wedding and Erik (who is a pastor in Seattle) said, "We'll talk more about this later."

So now it was later, and we were all sitting at their dining room table talking about a lot of things, when Erik turned to me and asked a question that no one had asked me, at least not quite like this. He asked, "Why are you fasting? Is there a big decision on the horizon?"

I opened my mouth to reply, and realized before I spoke that I wasn't sure of the answer. Did I have a big decision on the horizon? Maybe so. I wasn't aware of one, but something about the question made me pause. Most of the time, big fasts in scripture come in turning point moments... a new ministry is about to begin, or someone is about to have an intense meeting with God and receive some marching orders. Could it be that I'm in the midst of something like that? A preparation for hearing something big about my future?

Ten years ago I did the longest fast I had done to that point, about 30 days or so. At the end of that fast, hidden in a stand of bamboo, I prayed and talked with God and heard him speak in one of the clearest ways I ever have in my life and what happened in that moment was that God asked me if I was willing to take on writing as part of what he expected of me. Not necessarily my vocation, but something that would be part of my service to him, not just a hobby. I won't go into the details of that conversation right now, but for me it's an important turning point where my writing officially went from being a hobby to being something I knew needed to be professional and in his service. Could something like this be coming in the next nine days? Could it be that there's a big decision on the horizon? What might he ask from me?

I can't remember what I said to Erik. I hope I said, "Good question." Because that's a great question and one I think all of us can ask ourselves: "Is there a big decision on the horizon?" Am I ready for that?

Fasting Day Thirty: Fasting while the bridegroom is here

This morning Krista and I drove up to Seattle for an old friend's wedding. Actually, it's someone we met when she was just a kid... maybe eight or ten years old, the same age our kids are now! It was strange and moving to see someone we had known when she was a child getting married. Her dad was completely falling apart, of course, and I can only imagine that I will get to do that three times or so in the years to come. 

We can't go home to Seattle without a lot of memories. We parked near our old apartment above the Animal Eye Clinic, where we saw a steady stream of one-eyed puppies coming through for two years. Then, Krista and I went to lunch at the best Indian restaurant I've ever eaten at in America, Taste of India! It's actually the best Indian restaurant I've eaten at anywhere, but I figure there could be a better one in India. Maybe not, though.

Of course I couldn't eat anything, but I love that place so much that we ordered a meal for two and then we put the rest in a cooler we had cleverly brought along for precisely this reason and then lugged it around Seattle with us with the plan being to take it home and freeze it so I can eat it after the fast is over. Mmmmm, palak paneer. I don't know if that's the modern equivalent of turning rocks into bread or what, but I love me some butter chicken and palak paneer.

Krista and I also went for a walk around Green Lake (which might have been a bit much for me... I needed a nap in the car afterwards!) and then went down to U Village to buy a wedding gift and shop around a bit. 

Mmm, peanut butter banana wedding cake!

It's strange not to eat at the celebration of people you love. You can hide it a little bit by getting up to get people's drinks or something like that, but at the end of the day people notice that you're not taking part in the celebration and that's just weird. I think that's what Jesus was talking about when he said that his followers won't fast while he, the bridegroom, is with them. But when the bridegroom is gone they will fast, awaiting his return. 

We followers of Christ are waiting for the wedding feast of the Lamb. In the meantime there's some time of waiting and fasting, but a time is coming very soon when that will come to an end and we will all join in together and there will be no more fasting. In his presence, there will be no need for fasting again.... 

Fasting Day Twenty-Eight:A fully developed fantasy life

Does this look like something you
should be putting in your body?

I woke up and drank some fruit juice this morning (the V8 juice I’ve been drinking since day one, and it tasted really weird and not good for some reason). It tasted way sweeter than I was used to, which was weird because I didn’t really remember it being so sweet, but it had been a while since I had drank any, so I thought maybe it just seemed really sweet compared to grape juice or something. But there was this weird aftertaste. Then my wife pointed out that I had accidentally bought a LIGHT version of the juice (it was only 50% juice it turns out) and that I had been drinking not only some sort of weird light version but also SUCRALOSE. Gross! I immediately recognized the after taste when she mentioned it. Of course it was the chemical aftertaste of sucralose. I was really bummed about it, and later in the morning I got a pretty bad stomach ache from it.

That's more like it!

Tonight I spent about 40 minutes looking through a Chinese cooking book, trying to find something I would enjoy eating. I think it's fair to say that I have a fully developed food fantasy life now. I hate to admit it, but Krista and I were watching "Master Chef" the whole time I was flipping through the cookbook. I find myself overly interested in what the amateur chefs are making, and, you know, most everything they make looks good in a sort of disinterested way. 

Anyway, I’m thinking about making the vegetable broth that’s in our Chinese cook book. But what I really want is the Shanghai style noodles. Mmmmmmm. Krista said she would be glad to eat lots of the meals in the cookbook if I cooked them.

We talked about Father’s Day, too, which will be one week before the end of my fast. Of course I won’t be able to eat, which totally derails the usual family plan (“take dad to eat where he wants to eat”). But Chinese food sounds so good… I wonder if I’ll be able to eat it soon after my fast, and if so how soon it will be!

Fasting Day Twenty-Seven: Losing Hope

Starting to re-think the
"fruit juice only"diet.

Reminder: these posts aren't in real time. My fast is over, all is well, I am healthy and doing fine. But that's not how I felt on day 27 of the fast....

Today was the worst I've felt in a long, long time. I felt terrible today. Nothing felt good. I woke up feeling unpleasant, and was immediately unhappy with the people around me (which meant, of course, my family). I lacked any strength whatsoever, and the thought of taking an extra step or reaching across a table made me feel a fatigue bordering on despair. 

On the way to school the kids and I basically inherited a little lost kitten, which in some ways made the day better in that I stayed home trying to find the kitten’s home instead of going to work. But I slept HARD when the baby went down for her nap and woke not feeling well.

I told Krista tonight that I had felt awful all day and she said, “you look awful” and that I was starting to look “a little bony.” We’re headed into that unhealthy look now… and almost two weeks still to go. Fasting doesn't feel like something helpful, or spiritually enhancing, or healthy or useful today. It feels like something dangerous. It feels like lying still in bed and wondering what it would be like to never have to get up.

Fasting Day Twenty-Six: A feast during the fast

Mmmmm, salmon!

Today’s big event is a bbq for Nurse Shasta and her nephew Jacob who has come to visit her. I’m basically in charge of dinner, and we’ve bought fresh rogue river copper salmon and it’s red and gorgeous, and fresh snap peas from the farmer’s market and we’re making risotto and then for dessert it will be Oregon strawberries and fresh cooked short bread cookies. It’s going to be an amazing meal, and I’m really excited for it, even though I don’t get to eat it! I’m looking forward to everyone else enjoying it.

Today at the grocery, I felt really terrible for a minute… I wasn't sure I was going to make it out of the store. I had to lean up against cart and use it to stand. I felt really weak and awful, but it passed in a few moments....

Fasting Day Twenty-Five: culture shock

Am I meant to eat this?

I had this weird moment today when I passed Burgerville and saw the drive-through menu. I could see all the burgers arrayed in their glory and in a split-second I thought, "What would you do with those anyway? Why would you want them?” It had a feeling of culture shock. I had this realization that there's something everyone else is doing that I’m not and, at least at this moment, it didn't make sense to me.

For me, food has become fruit juice, I guess. Today I drank some weird tasting white grape juice. I suspect it’s actually white/peach/mango juice that had been mislabeled. I wasn't sure, though, so I poured it out and went to drink some apple juice I've left in the pantry to keep it at room temperature (I don't like drinking things cold right now... I'm cold enough already). But the apple juice had molded. Disgusting. And I think I drank some yesterday. 

At church tonight Pastor Jim told Krista that pretty soon I would need a walker. He was joking (I think) and saying that I look weak and tired. I asked Krista if that's true, wondering if I'm starting to look really bad... last time I fasted for a longer period people were really concerned for me by the end. But she said I look great compared to that time, so I'm not too worried.

At dinner tonight, Krista apologized for talking about all the different times in the day when she’s hungry… I told her that I'm not hungry anyway, and I realize that it's true. I'm hungrier when I'm eating than when I'm fasting. 

Fasting Day Twenty-Four: Do Over

Yesterday, in my attempt to get time alone with God, I found myself sucked into business and what was meant to be a day with God turned into a few hours of reflection. This is not too big a surprise... this happens often enough. So today, I started over and tried again.

I started the day off by driving up to WSU Vancouver, where I sat in the library and read Isaiah 58, where God talks about what fasting really should be.  It’s not about getting God’s attention or even about trying to get close to him. God says “they seem eager to be know my ways” and “day after day they seek me out” and are baffled why they’re not getting an answer, not getting what they want. And it turns out it’s because fasting and prayer doesn't counter-balance the fact that they’re interested in living their lives their own way. They want to keep mistreating other people and one another and they aren’t interested in doing what is right. And God says, that the best thing to do as part of a fast is to destroy injustice, to break enslaving yokes, to provide for those less fortunate than yourself. It made me think of people like Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, and how for them fasting was a tool to try to bring about justice on the earth. And it made me think that here I am, more than 3 weeks into a fast and I am still doing whatever I want. Thinking about myself, focused on my needs, doing wrong things because I like doing them.

Overall, it was a great day of reflection and prayer, with lots of interesting topics to consider.I spent a good amount of time looking at the story of Jesus' 40 day fast and comparing it to the 40 years in the wilderness for the people of Israel. If you compare the story of Christ's fast with Deuteronomy 6-8 all sorts of strange things come out... for instance, the first temptation to "turn the stones to bread" leads us to "man does not live by bread alone"... Jesus trusts that God will provide in a way that the Israelites did not. Some of the books I read said that we should see Jesus as a "new Israel"... if he can overcome the temptations set before him then he will be allowed to take us all into a new promised land. I'll put up a bibliography soon with some of the books I've been reading. I will say that one of the books (by John Piper) was called (like yesterday's post) "Hungry for God." I think if I ever wrote a book about fasting it would have to be called HUNGRY FOR GOD (AND CHEESEBURGERS).

I ended the day by meeting with Pastor Jim, the executive pastor of our church here in Portland, who said that for him fasting is like speaking in tongues… if God gifts him with it or tells him he has to do it, he’ll do it, but otherwise he’s content to let others do it. That's not all he said, but we had a good time together and it was a nice way to end my day with the Lord. I felt like God met with me and I learned a lot, and I was pleased that the day had gone well and without distraction.

40 Day Fast Day Twenty-Three: Hungry for God

That blindfolded horse makes me think it met its end at a firing squad.

I took a day with the Lord today. It was, to be honest, often interrupted and didn't really translate to a full day spent focused on God. I got a couple phone calls from overseas and basically got distracted by my job. I didn't spend much time in prayer, though I did take a trip down to Western Seminary to get a big pile of books on fasting from the library.

While I was sitting out on the Western Seminary lawn I saw my dear friend Callie Goodman. I haven't seen her much lately, but it was really great to run into her. She asked why I had so many fasting books and I told her that I was actually in the middle of a longer fast and she said "PRAISE JESUS!" I thought that was a funny response. I laughed and asked her why she was having such a strong response, and she said that just that day in her class they'd been talking about how Protestants don't really fast much. Her classmates couldn't come up with any examples among their friends or at their churches of people who fast (or at least, people they were aware of who fasted). We had a long chat after that, and it was a really peaceful, enjoyable time, and felt like a blessing from God that I had run into her.

Awww, look at that tiny little man! So cute!

Today, I was struck by this fact… if I’m really “hungry” for God, if I’m desperate to be with him and thinking about it constantly in the same way that I’m thinking about food all the time… why did it take me 23 days to set aside even a few hours of time with him? My "day with the Lord" worked out to 5 hours, cut short by a variety of things, and less time than I’ve spent at the grocery store and cooking meals and then eating them at plenty of other times. I've spent more time than that watching television plenty of times in my life. I love to say God is the most important person in my life, that he's the biggest priority, but my life sure doesn't show it. Not in my time management, not in my choices in how to spend my free time, not in anything. When we sing songs in church that say "I'm desperate for you" or "You're all that I want" and I sing the words, I am full of it. I'm not desperate for him. He's not all that I want. Not today. I'm not hungry for God. If I wrote a book about myself it would have to be titled "Hungry for God and Cheeseburgers." It's a sobering realization.

I think I should try a do-over tomorrow.

40 Day Fast Day Twenty-Two: Baggy Pants

Pretty sure these guys are fasting.

I took Baby M today and we went to the store to buy some new jeans. Mine have gotten so baggy that they're annoying to wear. I also took a long nap on the couch today. I was so cold that I put a blanket on and pulled my hood on over my head while I slept. One advantage to being so cold all the time is that at long last I can pay my wife back in bed with my ice cold feet. Mooowhahahahaaa!

Also... somehow my count of days is all off and I can’t figure out how. Krista pointed out that I had day 40 on our calendar a day early, and now somehow I’m a day behind where I thought I was, and I have to rearrange everything and push it back a day. Sigh. I can't even count right when I'm fasting. I'm pretty sure my body is trying to trick my brain into eating early. 

Tomorrow I'm doing a day with the Lord (at long last). Should be nice.

40 Day Fast Day Twenty-One: Halfway to maybe... can I make it another 19 days?

I'm not tired, I'm using the mouse with my nose.

I am exhausted. Krista said last night that she can’t see how I can do another 20 days. She's concerned that I am not able to do all the things I would usually do, like stay awake all the way through the day. I mentioned this to Nurse Shasta today, thinking she would side with me and say that it would be fine, but she says that she also is concerned that I am putting myself in a bad situation. Apparently I'm not acting much like myself, what with all the sleeping and slow walking and shivering in the cold.

Nurse Shasta also suggested I talk to a mutual friend who, it turns out, has done multiple of these lengthy fasts and usually seeks medical advice during the process. She said that when I am eventually able to eat I’ll have to very slowly start re-introducing foods… she says it could take as long as the fast itself to get back to a regular diet. I told her that a regular diet would mean a giant pile of nachos, and I asked her when she thought I should start eating like that again. She said, "Never."

Also (potty talk ahead)… my bowels became suddenly active again today, which I found surprising. What on earth is coming out that’s solid now? Must be part of my waist line or something.