C. S. Lewis says that a man can easily ignore pleasure, and I agree: just see how getting to the bottom of a bowl of vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream is always a shock, like a kind of waking up. But, he goes on to say, pain pretty unfailingly grabs our attention, and I agree with that, too. That’s one reason why fasting works. If I decide to pray for something often over the course of a day, I will usually flag before noontime, but if, by not eating, I set my stomach as my alarm clock, then it will call me to my knees as reliably as any muezzin.
Last Wednesday morning, I was mini-fasting on behalf of Susan and her teaching of the first chapter of Romans. It was a breakfast-only deal, sort of a speed fast, redundancy intended. It’s surprising how quickly a breakfast fast transforms my stomach’s voice from a drowsy muffle to a full-throated clarion.
The ladies bring a real feast every Wednesday morning. So much cooking talent, unbound from any notions of decent meal planning, since it’s only a “snack” after all! And so much sugar, because, without men present, the feminine penchant for sweetness runs rampant.
I arrived early to find Susan in a worry about her talk and was glad I had already undertaken to support her. But as I passed by the first sentries on the snack table, my hand, apparently talking to my stomach behind my brain’s back, darted out and grabbed a sugared donut hole and popped it into my mouth. Immediately I was filled with a sense of horror. What had I done? Could it be undone? Did the fast really matter? Wasn’t it ridiculous to think Susan’s talk depended on what my mouth did? What was I supposed to do after all? Spit it out??
And there the voice of mocking slipped up, because my hand, under new orders, came up a second time to my mouth, and my thumb and index, pincer-like, removed the donut hole, only just beginning to dissolve. My tongue ran halfheartedly after the sweet mess, then retreated to its cave to savor the few fallen crystals.
And then I had an even bigger problem—what to do with that dear, sweet donut hole? I cherished it the more because I would not enjoy it. I could not now bring myself to throw it away. So my hand marched out again to attack the problem. It found and retrieved a paper towel from the kitchen dispenser. It carefully wadded the donut hole inside a nest of paper. And it hid the whole unsightly mass at the very back of an obscure drawer. And an hour and a half later, as Susan finished wrapping up what in the end was a wonderful and powerful talk, I headed for the kitchen.
