Silence thy rumbling, insolent stomach - or, a blog post written on Ash Wednesday

Most of the time, when I sit down to write a blog post, I have a pretty good idea of what to say. I usually pick my topics two or three days in advance, and I just think over them whenever I have a spare moment. These thoughts may not be valuable, but they are at least usually preconceived. I also try to keep myself to a strict schedule of publishing on Wednesdays and Fridays. Most of the time this schedule works nicely, as it allows me to write on a wide range of subjects. Sometimes it backfires, and I come to Friday without a single idea of what I'm going to write. But most of the time, this schedule works.

Except when the particular Wednesday your are trying to write on is Ash Wednesday. For several weeks now (ok, for just the past week) I've realized that I was going to have to write this post on Ash Wednesday, and I also realized what a challenge this would be. Unfortunately for me and for most everybody around me, I am not a very good faster. I admit it, fasting tends to make me scatter brained and just a tad bit grumpy. So, when I realized that I'd be writing while fasting, several things occurred to me. First, I considered just moving the publication date to tomorrow. I thought, "I'll just wait until that whole fasting thing is over, and I can concentrate more." But I didn't like this idea because I tend to be kind of neurotic about disciplines and schedules, so when I fail to do something when it's supposed to be done, I get bothered by it. And, considering that the day I would get bothered by it would be Ash Wednesday and I would probably already be slightly irritable, I decided this was a bad idea.

So, my second idea was to especially try to prepare for this blog post so that even in my hunger induced state of mental confusion (I'm such a wuss) I could write something half-ways intelligent. Thus, for the past several days I have been thinking about this blog post. I have been thinking about what Lent is, the importance of mortifying our bodies, of bringing silence to the soul. I have been thinking about the importance of this silence when it comes to repentance, and how to repent truly is to silence one's self before God. Honestly, I think it was going to be a pretty good article.

And then Ash Wednesday came, and so did the appointed time for writing this blog post. And lo' and behold, my mind is mush and I cannot seem to string together the coherent thoughts I have been working on all week. I am reduced to nothing simply because I have not yet had anything to eat. I find it difficult to focus, difficult to concentrate, and difficult to pray. All because my stomach insists that it is not fully satisfied.

By skipping just a few meals, I have truly been reminded of the dust of which I am, and the dust to which I shall return. All my habits that are normally so easy become difficult when my body decides to rebel against my soul. But in truth, this is why we fast. We don't fast because it's easy, we fast because it's hard. We fast so that we can feel the rebellion of our bodies, so that we give our souls a chance to master our bodies. We do it to restore the order of our being, to place our intellects on the throne that subjugates the body. This can't happen without mortification, it can't happen without feeling the fast. God doesn't ask us not to suffer when we fast, He asks us not to turn away from Him.

And indeed, in so doing we do find that silence that I have been thinking about over the past couple of days. By being faithful during mortification, our bodily desires begin to become silent. They begin to stop their protesting, and instead do as the intellect tells them. They no longer act as anchors tying us down. Instead, our souls become like monasteries - silent, devoid of distraction, bare, and full of his presence.

So silence thy rumbling, insolent stomach, and let me write my blog post. Oh wait...