It might be early to think about Lent, but Christine’s new book A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent will be published by Broadleaf Books on Tuesday and we are celebrating by hosting a virtual book launch on Friday. This is a free event that will include some reflections from Christine, a guided meditation, and we are delighted wisdom council member Richard Bruxvoort Colligan will be there to share music with us too. It will also be recorded if you can’t join us live. Please join us for a soulful time of sacred listening.
This is an adapted excerpt from the book A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent:
What are the things you hunger for?
I don’t mean cravings like your favorite meal or drink, or the obsessive scrolling through our social media accounts we can sometimes get caught up in, which often fuels our anxiety over the world or our sense of the inadequacy of our lives.
These things are not ultimately nourishing. What is nourishing are the things that are life-giving, joy-bringing, peace-arising, purpose-revealing.
We live in a culture that depends on distracting us from our true hungers, because when we identify with these surface hungers we will consume more and more in the search for satisfaction.
I want to invite you into a different kind of fast, one which helps you identify those patterns and habits that distract you from the fullness of life and open up space for the feast that awaits each of us.
What are the things you are holding onto? What are the patterns and ways of being, the habits and compulsions that are life-depleting? Which things divert your attention again and again from the radiant creation that you are? Are there resentments? Overwork? Grief denied? Are you a member of a marginalized group repeatedly hearing on the news how your life is less valuable?
And what are the true hungers you experience in quiet moments when you have a chance to pause and listen?
As we begin a new year, what commitments do you want to make for simplicity, clarity, and more space for living out your calling in the world? As dancing monks, one of the practices that calls to us is simply to bring ourselves as fully present to the world as we can. Here is a blessing from the book to honor this holy longing:
Holy Presence, guide our gaze back to here and now and reveal to us that you are with us always. Awaken us to see each shimmering moment, each loving gesture, each face full of yearning, and the ways you dance through Creation. Sustain us in releasing our need to distract ourselves with things which do not nourish, or numb us to the aliveness that is possible. Help us to savor this world through the gift of our senses, so that each day we look for beauty, we listen for the music of the world, we relish our meals, we inhale the fragrance of flowers we feel the embrace of life. When our attention wanders to that which depletes us, gently direct us again to your sacred banquet.
Join our book launch on Friday and our online companion retreat for Lent!
