wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Living her faith by fasting

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This story available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09121<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09121

>Living her faith by fasting

>by Emily Enders Odom
>Associate, Mission Communications
>Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

LOUISVILLE - Tricia Fischer is no stranger to the global
marketplace.  As a supervisor for the United Parcel Service
with responsibility for its international gateways, she
thinks and acts globally every day.

Thus already more attuned than most to the world's
intimately interconnected nature, Fischer turned both a
personal and an advocate's eye to world hunger issues,
questioning how her own actions involving food were
affecting her neighbors, locally and globally.

Fischer, who was raised as a Baptist and later joined the
United Methodist Church, attends Covenant Community Church
[www.cccoflouisville.org], a new church development of
Mid-Kentucky Presbytery.  She was drawn to the church's
"in, out, and with" approach, in which small groups help
members to appreciate their identity, practices, lifestyle,
and mission around a variety of shared concerns and issues
across the wider community.

Joining a group called "Just Food and Faith" a year ago
helped Fischer to see and to address more clearly - within
the context of her church community - how food impacts
society.  The group itself took shape partly because
several church members had participated in the seven-week
Just Eating? Practicing Our Faith at the Table
[www.pcusa.org/hunger/features/justeating.htm] curriculum
series, jointly produced by the Presbyterian Hunger Program
[www.pcusa.org/foodcrisis], Church World Service
[www.churchworldservice.org] and Advocate Healthcare
[www.advocatehealth.com], a few years earlier.

"One of the critical things the group helped me to identify
was the nature of human desire," she said.  "Just because
so many of us can have what we want doesn't mean that we
should have it. Having what we want isn't necessarily what's
best for the world."

For Fischer, that understanding translated into some
immediate lifestyle changes, including volunteering at a
community garden, moving from vegetarian to vegan
practices, eating and buying food locally, and
participating in the monthly, churchwide fast, initiated
last fall by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as directed
by the 218th General Assembly.

"In the fall, Andrew Kang Bartlett came to talk to us,"
Fischer recalled, referring to the associate for National
Hunger Concerns in the Presbyterian Hunger Program.  "We
discussed joining the fast as a great way to stand with the
PC(USA) and those working with world hunger issues in
solidarity with those who are suffering from hunger."
Additionally, the church's organizing pastor, the Rev. Jud
Hendrix, allows space and time for intentional communities,
like Fischer's group, to share what they are working on
through an open pulpit model.  Inspired by the testimony of
a person who had done a weeklong fast, Fischer was ready to
accept the challenge.

As she began the monthly fasts, Fischer immediately
discovered that the practice of fasting was compatible with
her church's and her own commitment to follow the way of
Jesus Christ and to live out God's call through inward,
outward, and communal journeys.  "Fasting fit all three of
those things," she said.  A married mother of three
children, Fischer said that for the time being, she is
content to be fasting "on her own" in her household.  Fully
supported by her family and friends, she regularly shares
with them the reasons why she has adopted the practice.

Fischer found, as she gained experience, that her greatest
learning was in understanding what she "needed" versus what
she "wanted."  "Fasting made me think about what it is to
be hungry," she said. "It changed the way I used language
about being hungry since I wondered how that must seem to
people who really are hungry."

With helpful interpretive materials for each fast provided,
updated and posted online through the Presbyterian Hunger
Program [www.pcusa.org/foodcrisis], Presbyterians are
invited to fast the first weekend of every month, beginning
on Friday evening and ending with Communion or a communal
meal on Sunday.  Those who have health-related conditions
or other concerns which would prohibit fasting from food
are encouraged to eat simple meals or design a fast that
fits their circumstances.  "Not everyone in my small group
at church is able to do a full-on fast," Fischer noted.

Fischer's "Just Food and Faith" group has found the monthly
focus on a specific country to be especially enlightening
and helpful.  "As Americans, we rush through our day
without having an awareness of what goes on in other
countries," she said.  "The recent focus on Haiti really
helped me to feel connected since some members of our
church, including myself, will be going to Haiti."

Recalling Jesus' teachings about fasting, Fischer regularly
examines her own behavior during each fast.  "When I'm
fasting, I try not to be aware of it and talk about it,
like Jesus taught," she said.  "Since I'm new to this, I
still need a lot of time to practice."

"I'm not a great spiritual leader because I fast," Fischer
said, "but I am perhaps a step closer toward that growth."

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