I’ve known rivers…
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
            Of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young,
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled my to sleep,
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when
            Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
And I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers.
Ancient, dusky rivers,
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

–Langston Hughes

    

My mother used to say when you can’t push your call to the back of your mind anymore…that your mental shelf breaks. That inkling, the whisper that eventually turns into a constant voice…when you can no longer push that calling to the back of your mind…we can no longer deny our call. To me, it became an ever present knowing that I must follow through with the God-given perspective that must be heard.

My knowing is about fasting and it’s relation to God, our health, our relationship with the world and the spiritual significance of prayer and our ability to loose the bonds of the spirit world. When I was in seminary, I was continually chastised for my belief and strong convictions about our gifts of discernment and the spiritual disciplines of fasting. Not fast from tv, or fast from profanity, but when I say fasting, I mean from food and drink. One doesn’t fast from television…you can quit the mindless addiction from it, but it is not fasting. And let no one convince you otherwise. Obviously, quitting an addiction is along the lines of obeying God and I am not demeaning those decisions to be godly. However there is a difference in the spiritual practice of fasting and one that does not deal with food.

Never let someone tell you that fasting doesn’t have to be from food. So if you are being called to start a fast, no matter how short or long, do not try to rationalize yourself out of it by substituting it with something else you need to stop doing anyway. Believe me, I’ve been there, done that.