Advent

I wasn't going to write about this. Mostly because I don't really know enough to really say anything of value about it. But I think I will. A little. I'm cold and tired and that should abbreviate things a little. I don't want to forget this place in my life. I hope someday I'm old and wise and look back and can say, "Yes, that was the road I was on..." and whatever else old wise people say.

I am a Christian refugee. I have officially left the Protestant church and don't see the trajectory I'm on ever bringing me back to it. Who knows. I don't have a crystal ball. But that's not important, really. What I mean to say is that my husband and I are refugees of the splintered church of the Protest, but we've not yet found homes anywhere else. He is rather inclined to consider Roman Catholicism. Though I have no real objections to the RCC any more, I am much more drawn to the Eastern Orthodox. He is gracious, sees the value there, and so we attend a Greek Orthodox church nearby. I love it. I love how it is actually rooted in antiquity. It doesn't have to reach back, around, or past an inconvenient history. It breathes ancient air here and now and that air is beautiful. The service is beautiful. The liturgy is beautiful. It doesn't end when you leave the building - it is carried throughout the week, throughout the year, and it's not contrived.

We are halfway through Advent, more or less. It's the season of preparation prior to the Incarnation. The Orthodox fast all through Advent, in exactly the same way as they do in Lent. Fast prior to Christmas? It seems so strange. This is the first year I've tried to do it, and I'm coming in quite late. It took a bit of self-convincing before I decided to actually give it a go. I had to remind myself of how much I loved Lent and how, oddly, I missed it, even after the Feast of Pascha (Easter). I am 6 days into my fast.

Now, to define the Orthodox fast. Basically, you don't eat anything that came from a creature with a spine. That's the easiest way for me to remember it. Plants are OK. Carbs are OK (God help me). Lobster, crabs, oysters, etc are OK. Basically, no meat or dairy. More basically yet, you become vegan. Oh, and no oil. :) I am not strong enough to give up oil. 75% of what we eat is prepared with an oil of some variety, usually olive. Maybe someday I'll be so strong. But it's a muscle I'll need to work on.

Why fast? I don't know all the reasons yet, though I am glimpsing some of them. You know how you feel when you're sick on the couch, all feverish, achy and cold? Someone suggests, "Hey, why don't you take a nice hot shower?" So you do. You know how miserable those minutes are when you're dragging yourself up the stairs, peeling off your clothes, standing in the frigid bathroom, and even those first minutes under the water? That's like the beginning of the fast. Several times, I've looked myself in the eye (in the mirror, nothing creepy here) and said, "It's supposed to be hard." But then, after a couple minutes, the ache starts to go away, you can stand up straight, and you're not shivering any more. That's like the fast. It cleans away a lot of "yuck" somehow (and I don't quite understand how yet) so by the end, you feel so clean, and so ready to actually fully greet the holiday that is upon you.

There's also a certain sharpening of focus. Every time the tummy rumbles, or every time you think, "Dang, I could really go for a roast beef sandwich, or pizza, or ravioli, or even some stinking butter" you remember why you're not going to have those things. And it's really cool. It's like the difference between carrying around a picture of your lover and actually being with your lover. The picture is cool and all, but it's so much better to be able to talk to him. Or, I guess, more vividly, there's this picture: there are all kinds of couples that come into the restaurant where I work. Some of them sit and stare at their plates and hardly talk. But the happy ones talk to each other. They remember the other one is there, and they delight in it. That's what the fast is like.

I'm six days in.

Oh. Another thing I love is the breathing-in and breathing-out that the Orthodox take part in. There is a fast, then a feast, then a time of permission but not extravagence, then the fast again, then the feast again... and so on. It so well mirrors the world we live in, the bodies we live in. We have winter, spring, summer and fall. Women have periods of shedding, periods of building, periods of fertility and periods of waiting.

There is a real objection to be raised, given the fact that we are TTC. Yes, I might be pregnant right now. No, it's not a really good idea to deny the body basic nutrients. I'm not. There are alternate sources of all the things you get from meat and dairy. I'm working very hard to be diligent in that regard. On the other hand, some part of me thinks it would be really cool to find out I'm pregnant in the middle of a fast I'm observing. Not because it would be some sort of reward, but because I want my children to grow up with their faith warm between their toes, soft on their skin, and woven into the fabric of their being. I want them to know the God I love, and nothing would thrill me more than to be the first one to teach them.

I am very happy I decided not to neglect the fast.