{"id":568,"date":"2021-09-08T21:39:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T01:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/?p=568"},"modified":"2021-09-08T21:39:31","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T01:39:31","slug":"ascetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/ascetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Ascetic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>

\u201cIf there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>-Dietrich Bonhoeffer<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I converted to Orthodoxy just a few months prior to the start of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Of course, I had been inquiring for about a year before that, and in that time had given thought to the idea of asceticism. Coming from a Protestant Christian background it is somewhat of a foreign idea. Not completely so, but, still, there is not much emphasis placed upon it in Protestantism. It\u2019s mostly something you see your \u201coverzealous\u201d friends do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Protestant world it looks something like\u2026 giving up TV for a month. Or going on a juice fast for some period of time. Or maybe just skipping a meal. Now, I\u2019m not knocking those things. That thing I said about overzealous friends? That\u2019s how I felt about it years ago. I think those people were onto something. But, there\u2019s no structure of asceticism in the Protestant world. There\u2019s nothing like: Fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, unless it\u2019s during a feast week. No one expects you to do it, I guess is what I\u2019m really getting at here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, obviously, as I just mentioned, in Orthodoxy you have that basic weekly fast, where MOST weeks of the year, the \u201crule\u201d is that you should fast on Wednesday and Friday. No, Protestant friends, it\u2019s not a rule in the sense of.. if you don\u2019t fast those days you are definitely going straight to Hell. But, it\u2019s a rule because it is for the benefit of your soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had some starts and stops with fasting early on, and more recently I just haven\u2019t really tried at all, until today. Today I kept the fast. And I intend to do it again on Friday. I want to get to a point where I\u2019ll be able to make a real go of keeping it for all of Advent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the sudden interest in doing so? Well, because I recently started seeing mentioned in various places the idea of being better than you were the day before. I think in at least one place it was a clip of Jordan Petersen, suggesting that you should never compare yourself to other people, because you have no idea what their situation is, but you CAN compare yourself to yourself. So just be a little better tomorrow than you were today. That\u2019s the thought I really needed to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately I\u2019ve gotten pretty lazy about things. And if I\u2019m honest, being lazy has been a big problem for me much of my life. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m ALWAYS lazy, or that I\u2019m lazy about everything\u2026 but I can be lazy about a lot of things. So that\u2019s meant I\u2019ve not really been exercising for the last several months, I haven\u2019t been eating well the last several months, I haven\u2019t really been praying or reading the Bible as much as I should the last several months\u2026 and also I haven\u2019t been writing like I should. I\u2019ve NEVER written like I should. I like it, but as soon as I start to feel like I\u2019ve got a bit of writer\u2019s block, I just stop trying. But I want to break through that. That\u2019s why the new blogs lately. If I don\u2019t keep up with them then you\u2019ll know that I failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like a modern secular asceticism is the idea of a diet. Limiting your food choices so as to lose weight instead of just eating whatever you fancy at the time. It may not perfectly meet the requirements, but it\u2019s something close. When I started out with the idea of fasting I thought something like\u2026 \u201cBut my food is already limited by my diet, and then this is going to cut out the primary thing I\u2019m allowed to eat: meat.\u201d While that\u2019s true, it\u2019s not like it\u2019s impossible to do both. After all, there are people who do vegan keto as their whole lifestyle, and they manage to survive. While I only need to fast on Wednesday and Friday I think I\u2019ll be able to get by just figuring things out on my own, but by the time Advent rolls around, I will for sure be checking out some vegan keto recipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve also started using a stupid little iPhone app I bought years ago that lets you earn \u201cexperience points\u201d for doing tasks that you define for yourself. Strangely it is a little bit motivating to be able to go in there and knock them out after I finish something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a few days in, things are going pretty well. I\u2019m not much better than I was a few days ago, but I think maybe marginally so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it … Continue reading Ascetic<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkestlight.org\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}