Fasting as 'Quickening'

"The season of Lent provides many stimulants for speeding up spiritual growth." ( Holy Island, page 15.)

Yesterday the reflection was on placing our body under our soul.  The logical next step is that if we have the body out of the way, we would have more opportunities to strengthen our spiritual soul and take steps down our spiritual paths.

What are ways in which we can "speed up" our spiritual growth?  Well, by participating in this discussion. :) I know that some have had at least a stimulant for thought, if not the beginnings of actual spiritual growth over the last few days.  Some would argue that this "online world" is not a community.  Even though from time to time you may feel like you are talking to Brad Paisley in a three-way chat, growth happens in a community.  I do not mean to minimalize the real dangers of the internet, especially for youth, but I have found people to be the most "real" in some internet chat rooms.  They may not be "real" to who they "really" are, but the questions they pose to you, or the direct responses one may abruptly give to you may in fact be exactly what we need to speed up your spiritual growth.  The point here is not that you are chatting in a chat room.  The point is that you are involved in a community instead of going about your study alone.  If you are in community, you have someone to ask you the questions you may not want to ask yourself.

Call up two or three of your close friends and start a discussion on Holy Island and then share your thoughts here.  Read Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith and discuss it in a small group of 4 or 5 at someone's home, or start or join an online discussion community.  Read Everything Must Change: When the World's Biggest Problems and Jesus' Good News Collide by Brian McLaren or Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass.  Or here is an interesting book that I read just last year, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus and Bishop Curry of North Carolina, my former Bishop, calls it a must read. Want to join a small group that is already formed? There is a small group that is meeting at the Gettel's house where they are talking about another of Brian McLaren's books Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. All of these books provide great food for thought and fodder for discussion in a small group.  If you decide to start a small book group, let me know and I may join you, if you wish, and we can quicken our spiritual lives together.

Fasting...it doesn't have to mean taking away.  It can also mean quickening, or speeding up the spiritual growth in our lives.  The good Lord knows we could all use a little tune up in our spiritual growth engine!  And what better way to do it than venturing off our own Island to a place that is a little more unfamiliar.  Who knows, we may just learn something about God and ourselves in the process.