Pulling Focus – Fasting

Fasting & Feasting Lenten Retreat Wk 3

Chant, by Mark Nepo

What we want and
what we’re given often
serve two different Gods.

How we respond
to their meeting
determines our
path.

“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2: 12-13)

“Is this not the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Isaiah 58: 6-7)

Healing of a Blind Man, Brian Jekel

Week 3: Pulling Focus – Fasting

Reflection by Kathy Prudden and Lisa Smith

The main idea of fasting during Lent is to voluntarily deny ourselves something that is part of our normal life as a way to turn our focus back to God. Fasting can reveal what we consider to be important in our lives, what we think we cannot live without. Often this takes the form of giving up meat, chocolate, or television. The writer Catherine Marshall describes taking a broader approach by engaging in a day of fasting from criticalness of others, as a form of this spiritual discipline. In reflecting on the difference that this created in her thoughts and actions, she identified having discovered the following: a critical spirit puts the focus on us and makes us unhappy; it blocks the work of God and the Spirit; and can interfere with quality relationships between people. I would add that having a critical spirit towards ourselves similarly interferes with relationships with others and with God.
-Kathy

I was struck by Kathy’s use of the phrase “pulling focus.” It reminded me of my acting days when these were words you never wanted to hear. Sometimes an actor, lighting or even a piece of furniture might be so attention worthy that it would “pull focus” from the main action in the scene. “Pulling focus” meant distracting the audience from where their attention should be. No matter how interesting, talented or entertaining that distraction might be – it had to go! Nothing is allowed to pull focus from the main thing. Keeping this idea in mind helps me think about fasting in a new way. What am I allowing to pull focus from what God is doing in the world? So many times, for me, it is anxiety about – well… everything! Every time I start going down the rabbit trail of doubt and questioning this week I’m going read the poem “The Prayer of Resistance” by Mark Nemo.
-Lisa

Activities:

Consider first what might be pulling your focus away from God.

1. Spend the first day noticing what occupies your mind, speech, and behaviors that are serving as a distraction. Perhaps it’s an attitude of criticalness (towards yourself as well as others), envy, busyness, or a need to be right or perfect. Is it an activity, such as watching television or being on social media?

2. Next, spend the rest of the week engaging in a fast from this activity or attitude. Write in your journal, or engage in art making (draw, paint, collage, make music, dance) to express the experience.

3. It can sometimes be difficult to turn our thoughts away from thoughts or behaviors without having something else to focus on. When fasting from food, for example, hunger pangs can lead us to think about God or what is most important in our life. Similarly, if you are fasting from an attitude it may be helpful to use an affirmation – or piece of poetry or scripture- to serve as a replacement.

Poetry For Meditation & Reflection

God save me
from the people
turning to stone.

God save me
from me
turning to stone.

As the water
wears away the rock
wash over me.

All that is harmful
bear away
in your flow.

All that would bruise
gather into
your depths.—– Jan Richardson

Briefly It Enters and Briefly Speaks, by Jane Kenyon

I am the blossom pressed in a book
and found again after 200 years…

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper…

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me…

I am food on the prisoner’s plate…

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills…

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden…
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge…

I am the heart contracted by joy…
the longest hair, white
before the rest…

I am the basket of fruit
presented to the widow…

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit…

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name…

The Prayer of Resistance, by Mark Nepo

I’m no longer surprised
to look up and see others,
beautiful tired others,
climbing or descending
alongside me.

All of us building
our way out of pain
or fleeing the exquisite
trapeze of our dreams.

All this currying for deep
serious purpose, only to find
a little bench from which
to glimpse the unseeable
wave of everything.

And all along
it’s been God’s trick
to dissolve what we want
like rice in rain until
exhaustion is the prayer
against our will
that drops us
into peace.

There are several ways that you may specifically engage with the weekly material:

*personalize one of the poems to create your own;

*respond to the poem through poetry, journaling, or other art form;

*underline words or phrases that speak to you from the reflection, poetry, and/or scripture and create a poem from these words;

*create art in response to the reflection;

*maintain an ongoing journal of your experiences with the material;

*engage in a weekly discussion with someone about your experience.

We would love to hear from you. If you have responses, reflections, poetry, images or music you would like to share please send Lisa an email by clicking this link!

This Online Lenten Retreat is also available via a weekly email. Please click here if you would like to receive the retreat in your inbox until Easter.