At the end of January, thinking of a friend who was giving up meat for a while as a test, I decided to eat no biscuits for the month of February. This is a test of my will, nothing more - I have the metabolism to eat a pack of biscuits a day, and I enjoy it. And it's not as though I didn't appreciate biscuits before this. I picked biscuits rather than alcohol, chocolate or anything else because I knew how much I like them.
In a couple of hours, I will be halfway through the fast, and it is painful. Every time I have a cup of tea, which is several times most days, it's hard not to be able to have a biscuit too, likewise at other times (especially as Horalky was deemed to qualify). So I am testing myself, and so far I have been successful. Great
But despite that it seems stupid. Of course I can not eat biscuits for a month. A fast is not particularly self-improving, especially if it will, by common consent, be over sooner or later. Much more beneficial to my life would be to get up an hour earlier every day for a month – the act would be difficult, but have a clear positive effect in giving me more time. And then, since I am in a win-win situation, maybe I would fast beyond the fast. Whereas this fast gives me the superficial impression of having achieved something, a horribly bourgeois doing-without. In some contexts, a very useful ability, pat pat well done I’ve one less thing to worry about when I am posted to Helmand or the Gobi desert.
If I were at risk of getting unhealthy through my biscuit-eating, there would be a reason to give up biscuits, but then it becomes a diet, which is something more inflicted and less enhancing than a fast, even if they generally share the aspect of being temporary and tokenistic.
But this ‘enhancing’ thing is quite key, I think. And since it’s also Lent, what about the spiritual enhancement that comes from a fast? (Of course I could be considered unqualified to comment on religious matters, but in the spirit of inclusiveness, let me be considered differently able.) Giving up the lustful pleasures – food, drink, sex – gives you time to be closer to the gods; same old banal idea that it’s being (selfishly) close to God, rather than seeking to spread happiness, which should concern us. (Fallacy of excluded middle noted.)
But that’s just the silly idea that God has any petty, human need for our spiritual body heat. What I’d question is whether prayer and other highly satisfying religious activities shouldn’t also be considered lustful – surely a regular churchgoer seeking to test their will should abstain from going to church, rather than their naughty nightly nibble?
Would I then suggest giving up reading good books? Or news from the latest US primary? How about small talk? Using the work printer for non-work printing? (No, Yes, Yes, No.) How do you decide which ways of harming your happiness.comfort.routine are improving, and which just leave you miserable?
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I think I’m more in favour of positive actions. I suppose New Year’s Resolutions are the case in point – the ritualistic sense of diets referred to above comes primarily from the lemmingish set time of year at which they occur.
In conclusion, I have decided how to turn the fast into something appreciable. I will allow myself to eat biscuits every day I get up at half past seven (eight at the weekend and on days when I am not working). And Horalky are to be allowed.
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5 comments:
I was at school mass the other day, watching the confirmed kids kneel at the alter, when it occurred to me that people might want to give up alcohol for lent. Or perhaps they'd be more specific and give up, say, wine. Would they make an exception for the sacrament do you think, or would the fast be more important?
Perhaps that's why everyone seems to give up chocolate.
the sacriment literally becomes the body and blood of christ so you wouldn't have to give it up. Transubstantiation wins again. Though you could give up canibalism for lent and thus not be able to take the sacriment.
Chris - great blog. I know exactly what you mean. As my dad friend would say "where's the pain".
But sometimes giving stuff up can have spiritual or phychoilical journies within it. Biscuits don't quite make it, even if you really love them. But in a way you are achieving something, it is rare for the afflient to deny ourselves anything that we can easily obtain and that we enjoy. My romanian colleague says he doesn't need more money because he doesn't have the desire for pointless and unnesesary things that people in our culture have.
Then again that way puritanism lies and I'm all for the pleasures of the flesh or the bicuit.
Transubstantiation only applies to Catholics and Orthodoxers, and the occasional CoE. Though you're right that it's a good get-out. Do you also have school Islamic ceremonies? Aren't about all your children Bengali?
And do no churches have chocolate-covered wafers?
I'll go for my biscuits, mp3 player, lip-salve and laptop in life as it currently finds me, but none of these things couldn't be done without in some other time and place. Relative is. In some places I'm sure it's bourgeois to brush your hair. (I've given up cutting it, which may have been quite spiritual...)
Yes, you're right that it wouldn't affect my school's church; they're the transubstantiation variety of Christian. But what about those who believe in consubstantiation?
The muslim third (or perhaps a little more) of the school don't come to church unless there's some kind of seasonal event (ie. nativity service at Christmas). Around Eid, the kitchen cooks a semi-appropriate school lunch and sends an Eid wordsearch home. That's about the lot.
consubtsantiation!!
its a con.
grr... religious people annoy me. What is the point of symbolic wafers and wine? Surely there's no leap of faith involved in symbols. The nest thing they'll be talking about a symbolic afterlife.
If the wine doesn't change into christs body then they're just taking drugs in church, which I am sure God is against. And as for the wafers, you might as well cover them in chocolate if they don't actually become gods body. Since its symbolic you might as well make it taste nice.
Mind you I've never eaten a communinian wafer... I'll have to try one sometime.
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