For Janis Galvin fasting for Lent has long meant saying no to candy for the 40 days before Easter. But when the season begins this year on March 9, it’s apt to mean something more: walking when she’d rather drive, for instance, or turning the thermostat way down.
Galvin, an Episcopalian, will join with about 1,000 others who’ve signed up for the 2011 Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast, a daily regimen for reducing energy consumption and fighting global warming.
Lent is getting a makeover, especially in some Protestant traditions where it hasn’t always drawn strong interest. The carbon fast is one of several initiatives aimed at reinvigorating Lent by linking themes of fasting and abstention to wider social causes.
So is the next step observing Lent by religiously refusing to use your brain? Oh, never mind….
Sigh…In a similar gutting of great tradition I briefly attended an Episcopal church where the only special notice Pentacost Sunday got was the fact that it was “the birthday of the church”. So, they had twelve cakes, one for each month, and you were encouraged to have a piece…but you didn’t have to have one from your month, you could eat any cake. The mind reeled at the emptiness of it all…
Oh this is GOOD. Now, like any good “observance” imposing a set of *rules*, there have to be….Exceptions! I’ll start. Can I fast from Nitrogen instead? Bad idea, air is full of it and I can’t keep from inhaling til Easter. Am I still “fasting” if I exhale? Producing CO2? Maybe Sodium? Potassium? Maybe we could try another gas; methane? I recall KJS saying that was an important thing to reduce. Or, since they don’t really think Easter happened, just bag “Lent” altogether?
All fasting needs to be rooted in Christ’s fast, wherein he declared that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God. It starts with food, because that was where our departure from communion with God began, and because our need for food to sustain life has been confused with the capacity of food (or any other created thing) to give life. But, for fasting to bear a rich harvest, it must go beyond the level of outward observance and restore the love and communion with God the Holy Trinity in the heart of the believer.
A proud, self-confident Pharisee awaits in the heart of every human. Lent can be the season par excellence to reject this false vision of life, or it can be used to enthrone that vision in the trappings of good works or pious observance.
Wow, a carbon fast. I suppose if combined with confession and an opening of one’s heart to God, it might glorify God and even bring about a collateral benefit.