I'm Still Hungry & Fat Saturday

Lent once was an entire season of fasting. All the food that would spoil during Lent (before the day of refrigerators and freezers) had to be eaten or thrown out. So a day of feasting took place the day before the kickoff to Lent. Hence Fat Tuesday. Eventually it morphed into a day to get all the sin out of your system before the fasting and repenting season which is where Mardis Gras comes from. Since we decided to start our fasting on Sunday (42 days before Easter), Saturday was our "Fat Saturday."

The nature of our experiment is to confront the issues we have with over-eating and wasting food while the majority of the world goes hungry. We do not intend to starve our bodies or punish ourselves. We just need to gain some perspective, to discover what it means to be mindful and responsible with food and even to experience the want of food in ways similar to the want of the world, the want of the poor. As a sort of nod to the culture of the child who we sponsor in India, there are a few Indian queues we will take in food choice. One of those includes eating fish and chicken occasionally and no other meat.

Having shared a love affair with beef all our lives, our Fat Saturday menu included BBQ tri-tip sandwiches, fries and soda for lunch and tacos for dinner followed by banana splits for dessert. I said repeatedly throughout the day, this is your last chance! Eat whatever you want! But the Lord had already started working in me to match my gluttonous appetite with a sadness over it's existence. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every bite, but I  stopped myself from jumping from privilege to pig.

This morning, it began. I opened the fridge, saw the leftover taco meat and immediately started coming up with excuses for why we should eat it and eat it right away. However, I realized it was that old food-crisis-anxiety welling up in me so I talked myself down and walked away. For breakfast on this Day 1, I had half of a plain slice of wheat bread, 1/4 of an apple and some water. For lunch I had a scoop of rice and a scoop of bell pepper/onion sauteed in 1/4 oz tsp of butter and a glass of water. I'm still hungry. 5 hours and counting before dinner. For dinner, I am cooking beans, reheating rice and maybe making a couple tortillas since in India they too have beans, rice and a flat, round bread. Probably nothing alike to my Mexican version, but common ground is common ground so I'll embrace it.

Realization: I'm hungry but I know I'll have another meal today. Not many people can take comfort in knowing they'll have a third meal.

Anxiety

I'm already freaking out a little bit about our "eat like the poor" experiment. We haven't even started yet! I have simply been prepping for it by waiting until I am hungry to eat. Isn't that just a little bit sick? I've gotten so used to eating when its mealtime or when something looks good that I don't let myself get hungry on a daily basis. The feeling of hunger has the immediate effect of stirring up anxiety in me. I go into crisis mode. MUST FIND FOOD NOW. Weird. Clearly it is a good thing that we reexamine our food relationship.

Jeff is out of town for a few days and I have some research to do concerning Indian food. And then there's all the groceries we stockpiled days before deciding to "eat like the poor" for Lent. We plan to start on Sunday.

Excess

Lent is a time in the Christian calendar to strip away the excess. To identify the over-indulgences in your life, the distractions, the addictions, all the extra stuff. To get rid of the place-holders and allow yourself the chance to feel the void created. And then to intentionally seek God to fill the void. For the Christian who practices Lent, you might think of it as a sort of "New Year's Resolution" only in a humbling, reflective, God-centered way. It's asking the questions; where have I got myself to along my life's path, and how do I make my way back to embracing God's companionship? And what does that even mean in my everyday?

We've had some great experiences, great bonding and growing and maturing thanks to intentional Lenten practices we do as a family. You can read some of our posts from previous Lent experiences on this same blog. This year, as we anticipated Ash Wednesday, the kick-off to the Lenten season, Jeff and I started discussing our greatest struggles. We talked about our areas of weakness. About the things in our lives that we've let become a crutch or a band aid or an addiction. We talked about things that would make us better. Things that would make us vulnerable. Things we really don't think we could go without.

This year, we're going to examine our food consumption. We spend more on food than most other areas. Food is good. Food is powerful. Food is necessary. But there is always danger in over indulgence to corrupt the good. I use food in unhealthy ways. Name any emotion and my experience of that emotion likely draws me to the refrigerator. I eat because it tastes good. I eat because it feels good. I eat because I'm bored, excited, happy, sad and everything in between. When we are out of chocolate or cookies or coffee or icecream, we make a trip to the store right then and there to replace it. When it comes to food, we never go without. We always cook enough to feed ourselves at least twice over and fail to eat the leftovers. We throw away or feed to the dog enough food to feed an entire family. Our excess in food is poignantly contrasted by the incredible need and want and hunger in the world we've been called to love. 

We decided to eat as the poor eat for 40 days. A day later, we came across a suggestion from an organization called Compassion International a la Chris Seay's book A Place at the Table. The book discusses our relationship with food and how through a plan of fasting we can learn and grow in solidarity with those in poverty. For as long as we've been married, we've sponsored a child through Compassion. His name is Isaak. He lives in India. His family struggles to stay alive. Compassion suggested that for the 40 days of Lent, we specifically eat what our sponsored child eats.

I have some research to do and we'll have some logistical conversations about how exactly to move forward with this plan, but I am both excited and overwhelmingly challenged by this experiment. I hope you'll visit our blog over the course of Lent to join us on our journey and see what God has to say to us.

Mom Proverbs, part 1

I draw a blank every time. Never fails. But the next time I go to a baby shower and am asked to write some piece of advice for the mom-to-be, I'm going to look up this post and use it as my cheat sheet. Mom Proverbs When we fail to take care of ourselves, we rob our children of their mother's greatest potential. Do your kid(s) a favor: Take time for yourself. Take care of yourself. Ask for help. Often. Your children don't need a perfect parent. They need an example of how to handle imperfection with grace. Learn to say whats on your mind and how to say it gently. Shouting is deafening but the heart hears what is spoken softly. And its the heart that has the power to change the world. The greatest gift you can give your child is to love your spouse powerfully. Healthy, nurturing, affectionate, patient, forgiving, honest, genuine, passionate, selfless, inviting love FOR YOUR SPOUSE can and will speak powerfully into the character development of your children. Put your marriage first. Read books to your kid(s) for hours. Let him/her choose the books and turn the pages. Ignore the page numbers. Ignore the clock. Just read. Who were you before you became a mom? You don't stop being that person when you give birth. You'll evolve, mature, grow. You'll add a new dimension to your personhood. But you do not stop being you. Do not stop being you.