Fasting for Self-Control

March 1st, 2008 | 1 min read

When you're full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your spirit should,
an ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon's ring.

A table descends to your tents, Jesus' table.
Expect to see it, when you fast,
this tablespread with other food,
better than the broth of cabbages.

Rumi

There is some uncanny connection between how much you eat, how much you talk, and how much money you spend. There is a proportional relationship between how fast you do one of these things and how fast you do the other.

Jesus went into the desert to prepare for the self-control of carrying a cross up a hill even though, in one sense, he did not need to.

In America, self-control is not much prized. Our goal is not to conform ourselves to the Moral Law by Self-Control, but to conform the cosmos to our will, through technology. This way leads not to mastery, but slavery.

The Older Path is our salvation. Forgo not just fast food but meat, and dairy. See if you don't discover, like I did, that of all my problems, of all my enemies, I am the worst. And that, when I am conquered by my better self, all other battles become a matter of time.

Topics:

Embodiment

Devotional

Theology and Practice

Fasting for Self-Control

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