Lent 2.0
March is nearly upon us once again and with it the promise of a new Great Lent. Often have I extolled for you the wonders of the season: the Lenten services, the hymns, the readings, the intricate and glorious inner logic of each part of the 40-day experience. Realistically, however, I know that the observance of Lent among our Orthodox people in America is … “ahem” … less than total.
Part of the problem is that the fasting norms themselves seem so daunting to the modern man. It is partly because our rich American diet stands in stark contrast to the near-vegetarianism of Lent; and partly because satisfying and tasty Lenten cookery mostly presupposes a mother who stays at home and knows her way around the kitchen. It takes a lot longer to make a decent pot of lentil soup than it does to broil a steak. And unless you have killed off your taste buds with microwave sandwich pockets, you will find very few of the handy “heat-and-serve” foods to be satisfying during Lent.
Another part of the problem is that the system of food production has changed since these norms were codified in the earliest centuries. Back then, red meat would have been expensive while produce would have been affordable. These days, agriculture in America favors meat consumption. Greasy, salty prepared foods are cheap; fresh fruit and vegetables can be relatively expensive. In colonial America lobster was so plentiful that it was considered a poor man’s food, and legal contracts regulated how often a master could feed it to his indentured servants (no more than three times a week!). Today lobster is a delicacy, and during Lent one could go broke in trying to keep the fast by eating shellfish.
The comedian Basile has a bit in his routines about being made to eat peanut butter sandwiches for the whole forty days of Lent. Of course, no one would or should willingly adopt such a monotonous diet. Nor, with the enormous increase in our day of food allergies (especially to Lenten foods like nuts and shellfish!), is it even responsible for the Church to insist on this kind of menu for all Christians indiscriminately. Not only so, but the increase of diseases like diabetes and IBS demand that new provisions be made in the fasting regimen.
So we have a problem as Orthodox Christians in our country, and it behooves the leadership of the Church to address the issue and (do I dare say it?) adjust the norms of fasting to match our present-day realities. What we need, in other words, after twenty centuries, is the release of “Lent 2.0—Fasting Norms for the 21st Century.”
Of course, in order to tailor the canons of fasting to a modern diet, one must understand experientially what is the aim of the Lenten dietary restrictions. It is not a form of self-punishment through constant hunger and lightheadedness. It is not at all about losing weight and looking more svelte. The intention of the Lenten diet is to bring the digestive system into a state of calm, and with it the whole body and soul. In Orthodox theology we teach that the human being is not a soul animating a body, but a psychosomatic unity. What we put in our mouths affects our minds and moods, just as the thoughts of our heart can help or harm our physical condition. A day that is started with an Egg McMuffin will be a spiritually different experience from a day that is started with whole grain cereal and a boiled egg. Those who have ever tried to follow a Lenten fast strictly know this for themselves. Fasting gives a bodily feeling of peace and lightness, a lessening of the baser passions, and an openness of the heart and mind to nobler pursuits and to spiritual pleasures.
It would take someone with profound experience in the food-and-feelings connection to adapt the Lenten norms to our American situation. That person is not me. In the past I have shared with you the advice of other experienced priests, who try to inspire greater Lenten participation through a range of halfway measures in fasting. I now wonder if this is a mistaken enterprise. “Doing Lent” a couple days a week in the spring will never get a person to that place physically and spiritually which is the goal of the Lenten disciplines: a constant state of calmness and concentration that the spiritual writers of the Church call “self-collectedness” or “recollection.”
However, I do have a few non-dietary suggestions to make with regard to our modern lives and the goal of Lenten askesis (ascetic struggle). Following this “beta version” of Lent 2.0 may assist you in arriving at a greater sense of calmness during Lent. These suggestions address mostly the mental side of the mind-body connection.
1. Cut your computer time in half (outside of work). The information superhighway can become an information “fire hose” from which no man can take a drink without peeling the skin off his face! The Internet is full of “information” in a variety of qualities, much of it questionable even when G-rated. Our minds cannot properly digest the amount of data that comes through endless emails, blogs, websites, and entertainment software. Let your mind calm down. Put these things aside for Lent. You will not be missing anything by not reading the CNN.com “Breaking News” story on Arianna or Khloe. Take a walk instead and breathe.
2. Cut your TV consumption in half. Stop channel surfing. Turn the set on for a specific show, and turn it off when the show is done. Use the extra time to read a book. (May I suggest a couple of titles? Take a look at Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, or Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. Or crack open your old copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and see how close we have come to his dystopian vision of tyranny through pleasure.)
3. Cut out gossip from your life. Stop talking about third parties who are not present. Author Joseph Goldstein tried this once as an experiment for a few months and found that it eliminated 90% of all his usual speech. “Before I did that I had no idea that I had spent so much time and energy engaged in that kind of talking. It is not that my speech had been particularly malicious, but for the most part it had been useless. I found it tremendously interesting to watch the impact this experiment had on my mind. As I stopped speaking in this way, I found that one way or another a lot of my speech had been a judgment about somebody else. By stopping such speech for a while, my mind became less judgmental, not only of others, but also of myself, and it was a great relief.” (In Transforming the Mind, Healing the World.)
4. Read two chapters from the Bible every day. All the sermons in the world cannot match the spiritual nutrition in the simple words of Scripture. End your Biblical anorexia and read the book for yourself. Try one chapter from the Psalms and one from the Gospels every day, starting from chapter one and going straight through. Or follow the daily readings of the Church: sign up to receive them by email from the Archdiocese at www.goarch.org and go to the button for “Online Chapel” and pull down the menu to “Daily Readings.” In the bottom right corner is a form to sign up for this free service.
5. Take one page every day from the parish directory and pray for the families listed there. Nothing fancy, just a simple “Lord, have mercy on your servants …” You should be able to get through the entire new directory twice in the course of Lent. And you will get to know your parish family a little better too.
I wish you all a Blessed and Peaceful Great and Holy Lent. Kali Sarakosti!