Fasting for life

This is my second post and it is about fasting. I normally don't harp, but this just happened to be the next thing I wanted to write about.

Over a year ago, after reading a number of books, I decided to switch to a vegetarian diet. About four months later I switched again to a vegan diet. The 'why' of the switch is what this post, and the others that hopefully will follow are about and it relates, in some measure, to my previous post Thank you God for a bad potato.

When people find out I am a vegan they usually, without fail, ask 'why?'. This is a tough question for me as I don't really have one answer. At least, not yet. There are several reasons I went vegan and most of the time people are not really prepared for the length of the full explanation. They are expecting a short and simple response. So I've decided to take some time and dedicate my next several posts to the reasons I decided to go vegan. Following that I would like to also spend time writing about veganism from a Reformed Christian's point of view. Something that appears to have very little air time out there (It is interesting and sad to note that of all the books I read about animal welfare and conservation, not a single one was written by a professing Christian).

Veganism, for me, is much more than simply not eating animals, or saving the planet (although these things are a part of it). Veganism is also about making a statement to a church that has become completely numb to the suffering around her. It is about taking a step, perhaps only a small one, in a direction away from the status quo. It is a physical, tangible, visible message to fellow believers that something is not right in our midst and we must change, even if that change is drastic, unpopular and even unpleasant.

Animals are important to me in and of themselves. They are lovely, sentient* and, in many ways, reflections of ourselves. However I am even more concerned with what our attitude toward animals says about ourselves. When I see Christians oblivious towards the profound suffering of other creatures I find myself very concerned with the reasons for this oblivion.

True, some of the reasons can be chalked up to pure and simple ignorance bred from years of exposure to an environment of accepted cruelty disguised as a contrived need for survival. But I have had far too many people respond with, "But that's what they are there for" to leave that as a viable excuse in most cases. Whatever the reasons or the reasons for the reasons, they still give me pause for concern. In fact it scares me. It appears that we have, in the words of the prophet, forgotten how to blush (Jeremiah 6:15).

Because of my concerns both for God's people as well as for the animals and the environment, I have entered into a life long fast. I am fasting from all animal products. I am vegan.

What I am going to give you in the next post is a reason for my diet change. Not the reason. It isn't even the first reason. It just happens to be the one I wish to address first. I think it is a very important reason nonetheless, but for me there are a few other really important reasons as well and I find it almost impossible to stack them up in some sort of order of importance. So what is the first reason? I will explain in my next post "Animals, torture and hedonism. It's what's for dinner".

A word of warning: I have no plan to make these posts a polished manifesto for the Christian vegan (although they may turn into that someday, God willing). They will be loose, vibrant, sketchy, hopefully insightful and perhaps even useful to someone besides myself. Ultimately these are being written to help myself organize my thoughts in an informal manner while at the same time offering some small help to other believers struggling to live up to their convictions while at the same time staying committed, biblical Christians.

[* The original post read "somewhat sentient (although the debate as to how much so is far from settled)". I've come to realize that I was wrong here. Animals are sentient.  Period. ]

Thank you God for a bad potato

I was eating lunch today which included potatoes. The casserole was wonderful, made up of some of my favorite vegetables. The last potato slightly caught my attention as it was mostly black, but being the eating machine that I am, I had it in my mouth and down my gullet before I could finish processing the aesthetics of the thing. Sure enough it was a tad on the rotten side.

We have eight people in my family, most of us hungry a lot of the time, so once in a while something gets through that normally wouldn't if it was just me cooking for myself. So I can't complain. But I started to think about it. At first my thought was to mention it to my wife but then thought better of it. She didn't do it on purpose and she would be mortified to find out it had made it into the pot. Mentioning it would only make her feel bad.

Then another thought came into my head. Who am I to complain about it at all? There are people all over the world living daily on rotten food or no food. Let me rephrase that: there are people all over the world dying on rotten food or from a lack of it. Who am I to think I deserve any better than they?

I have, on occasion, abstained from eating food in order to identify with my brothers and sisters around the world who don't even have the luxury of the choice of whether to fast or not. But I have never purposefully eaten an austere meal or committed to a similar diet for the sake of the starving. Is the idea a bit over the top?

As Christians living in America we think we are owed something. We grow lazy and fat on our diet of complacency and spiritual indolence while the rest of the world can't even dream about the amount of food we consume in a day (how can one dream about a thing he has never seen or heard of?).

Maybe you've told yourself fasting is too hard. What about eating less food or less variety? Spend a week simply eating rice and vegetables, or oatmeal, or something along those lines. About the fourth day of oatmeal, while you are gagging on every spoonful, you can be reminded to pray for those who would kill for that very spoonful of food.

All that from a rotten potato.