Not So Fast

Not So Fast

People have always fasted, willingly and grudgingly.

Ancient civilizations learned how to incorporate extended periods of food scarcity, minimal seasonal produce, and famine by eating less or nothing when edibles were unobtainable, leaving stomachs grumbling for a meager portion of vittles.

These hungering societies not only survived but neoteric autopsies of historical individuals have revealed that they were much healthier than present day Americans displaying a glaring absence of cavities, arthritis, heart disease, and diabetes, which plague modern man and are correlated with a contracted life span and tenuous wellness.

These excavated discoveries add veracity and homage to the daring adage: what does not kill you makes you stronger.

Fast forward thousands of years and both the agricultural system and health landscape have been dramatically altered and are irrevocably unrecognizable.

Long gone are barren fields, empty cupboards and aching tummies reliant upon nature's cyclical harvests which were calculatingly displaced and dominated by surplus crops and endless artificial food stuffs all adding to a voracious Homo Sapien insatiability ushering in a state of rapid decline heavily weighted by rampant obesity and riddled with chronic and degenerative diseases despite medical expertise, stellar sanitation, and prolific prescriptions.

Fasting offers multifaceted health boons and has become a lost art and discipline.

Research has revealed autophagy as a catabolic mechanism whereby the cells in your body partake in intense spring cleaning by gobbling up intracellular debris, misaligned proteins, malfunctioning components, and harmful microorganisms and escorts them to the lysosome for digestion, recycling, and fuel, providing self-generated energy and improved metabolic functions and thereby reducing risks of inflammation and illness.

The catch is: one has to be fasting to activate this evolutionary self-preservation process that was jumpstarted eons ago signaling the cells to scavenge intracellularly when food deprivation was sensed.

If you are reluctant or averse to refraining, sometimes a higher calling or a religious observation can facilitate acquiescence.

March 5th is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the forty days of Lent, requiring fasting and abstinence from meat.

Feasting may be off the table, but as we shift focus from menus, food preparation, and indulging new dimensions are able to materialize on the spiritual front with prayers, devotionals, reflection, and Eucharistic Adoration.

It then becomes clear that food is not the issue, as most of us have over abundantly quenched bodily hunger.

Simplistically, we suffer from spiritual starvation, so deep and pervasive it infuses into every crevice of our being, leaving us as depleted and separated from God.

Lent allows necessary time and space for soul replenishment with quietude and communion with the Eternal One by shuffling priorities and permitting Soul talk.

As an ancient practice, religious devotees have fasted for millennia to honor God, sufficing the purging of both physical and emotional toxins sanctioning clarity and fortitude of the body, mind, and spirit.

This paves solid groundwork for continuous prayer and interfacing with the Lord, opening our hearts and minds, and detecting voids and wounds that only He can heal.

The Lord fills us completely.

Fasting is not a burden; it is freeing.

This keen introspection provides a new twist to, "Give us our daily bread," because what we truly yearn for is a daily dose of God.

~ "Jesus answered, It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."'
HEaling Link® will meet Tuesday, March 4, 2025, at 7:30pm via Zoom. For more information, please contact Jackie: HEalingLink03@gmail.com Isn't it time to get Linked?