True Fasting

It's time to re-enter the world of culinary delights!

There's an interesting sense of caution however as I begin to indulge this appetite again. Food has a wonderful role in our lives. Individually and as a human body, food is the fuel which powers the amazing systems in our body. I just experienced (not just observed) the Bodies exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center yesterday. As I looked inside the anatomical 'wonderland' (to quote John Mayer), I was just amazed at what the body can do.
Here are just a few facts.
--The heart can squirt blood 30 feet
--We have over 100,000 miles of blood vessels
--The tongue consists of 16 muscles (no wonder it's hard to control)
--The digestive system is an amazing dis-assembly process which takes about 24 hours
--The kidneys filter about 15 gallons of blood each hour
--Every drop of blood in the body circulates through the heart every minute
--A stem cell can morph into any other cell in the body

Needless to say, I walked away with profound amazement at what God has loaned us in our bodies.

Now there has been a good deal of controversy over the exhibit because of the way in which these bodies were obtained. Apparently, the bodies were those of unclaimed or unidentified bodies at a medical research facility in northern china. There certainly may be some questions of ethics here, but to me the most controversial part of this exhibit was the admission charge! $23.50 for adults...as opposed to the museum's typical ticket price of $7.25. That's taking advantage of the market and media for sure.

Back to the fasting though...I suppose my main reason for choosing this point to end the fast has been the difficulty it has imposed on my family. Not participating in the mealtime ritual at our home has really distanced me from Deb and the girls. As for a more spiritual angle on ending the fast, it has really helped me realize that I am weak and frail. I perceive that to be a great spiritual lesson. I don't believe that there's some kind of enhanced relationship with God through fasting except to say that focusing the hunger towards God and spending extra time with God definitely improves our sense of relationship (perhaps not in God's eyes) with Him. But spending more time with my wife would also improve that relationship as well. I suppose I'm glad that there isn't some superior spiritual experience attainable only through fasting...because it would then not be experienced very much. No, I would agree with a previous comment that there are perhaps more profitable things to fast which deal more with real time in our schedules. But there was certainly some good benefits to the deprivation I experienced over these 14 days which I don't think would be possible any other way.

I will find some other things to fast over the remainder of the Lenten season...perhaps blogging and reading blogs...I spend much more time doing that than eating. I'll end with a quotation from Isaiah 58, a chapter I've been immersing myself in during the season so far.