Coffee with Coconut Milk: A Western Girl Tries Out Coptic Lent
Today is the big day! The first day of Lent in the Coptic Church. Fifty-five days on a vegan diet within restricted hours. We do it every year, but I imagine it must sound crazy to someone outside the church. Not to Jen. A longtime blogger friend of mine chose to fast Coptic-style for her Lenten discipline this year. She's nearly a month in (Western Easter is March 27), so I'll let her tell you about it!
Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind but she's pretty sure it's documented in the last 15+ years of blogging at ::Meditatio::. When she isn't chasing her son Daniel around, she loves reading, crocheting, blogging, searching to find the perfect iced vanilla latté, and spending time with her family.
Some background: One of my favorite writers James Martin, S.J. has had one of his college buddies picking his Lenten sacrifice for almost thirty years. It's usually something like giving up italian ice, prime rib, and roasted red peppers and I usually look forward to seeing what they choose every year. A couple years ago, I thought I might try having a friend pick it for me, so I have used Rafflecopter to raffle off the right to pick it. It is usually not something big and fits in with the Lenten sacrifices of my own tradition but the various disciplines over the years have been things that have grown my faith.
This year, I invited Laura to participate and she ended up winning the right to pick my Lenten discipline. She was not entirely sure what to suggest and after thinking about it, I told her that I would take on the Coptic fast. Episcopalians (my tradition) are not required to observe a strict fast, rather we are told to fast but we have the choice of how we fast which is why you hear about people giving up things like chocolate, swearing, or alcohol for Lent. Most of us abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and all the Fridays of Lent which is more a matter of remembering to do so than anything else.
Laura's response when I told her my plan:
Hahaha... I don't think you can handle Coptic fasting rules :p :p We're trying build you not break you!! ;)
My response:
Bring it!
Then she told me about the fast being vegan seven days a week and no food or drink before noon. Doh! We decided to alter things slightly so that I would be allowed to eat before noon due to my blood sugar issues (stupid PCOS!) and I'd have Sunday off because they are mini-Easters for us. She also asked me to read Calmness by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III.
Lent started for those of us in the West on February 10th which was Ash Wednesday. I calmly asked for coconut milk in my morning latté from Starbucks and enjoyed some nice pita and hummus before heading to noon Eucharist with my friend Rebecca to receive my ashes. Dinner that night was plain ramen and it was after dinner that I hit my first snag: all of the Girl Scout cookies in my house had dairy in them. My usual snacks of string cheese and Greek yogurt were both out as well as they contained dairy. I felt myself starting to get whiny.
"But Goooooooooooooooood!!!!!!! I'm huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuungry!!!!"
God's response: "Suck it up, buttercup. You're the one who chose to do it."
Fast forward one month into my fast, I've got things down pretty well. I'm not usually a breakfast eater so my morning "meal" is usually some fruit and my coffee with coconut milk. Lunch tends to be pita and hummus and occasionally some raw veggies. Dinner is ramen or a veggie dog with tater tots. A snack for me generally consists of some apples and peanut butter. I've managed to keep the Monday - Saturday fast almost perfectly and the times I have broken it have been because I need some actual protein in the form of tuna fish to help me stay functional with the various crises that have been happening in my personal life.
So what have I learned from this? Well...
[+] Jesus was hungry during his time in the desert. I have read the story in Luke 4 about Jesus being tempted in the desert many times over the years but somehow the part about him being hungry after those 40 days never occurred to me. (Perhaps I need to pay better attention in church?) The day after Ash Wednesday, we were discussing it in the Thursday morning lectionary Bible study and that fact stood out to me very clearly, perhaps because *I* was hungry. (Because it's all about me, right?) It was a new understanding of how Satan's dare to turn the stone into bread was a legitimate temptation.
[+] Western Christians can be absolute sissies when it comes to fasting. With the exception of Lent and the Catholic church's command to abstain from meat on Fridays or do something else penitential, most of us in the Western church are not required to undertake any fasting during the year. After hearing my Orthodox and Eastern Catholic friends talking about what they do *weekly*, I already thought we were too whiny about the small amount we have to do during the year. Apparently, I am not the only one. Yes, it is an inconvenience to have to consciously think about how we're going to handle lunch with our co-workers on Friday. However, if Jesus considered my sin so important that He spent three hours nailed to a Cross to atone for it, I can make a few dietary changes one day a week.
[+] Fasting is so much easier when done in community. My parents are not Christian so this entire experience has been a source of curiosity and amusement for them. They have encouraged me in what I am doing and my dad has even found me "interesting" veggie sausage things; but there is always the question of "do you really *HAVE TO* do that???" Additionally, almost all the women I hang out with online are Catholic so they'll be discussing meatless meals and almost all of them will involve dairy in some way. I think that if they were doing it too and I had grown up fasting Coptic-style, it would be slightly easier for me.
Right now, I have about 23 days to go until Easter and I am definitely looking forward to whole milk in my coffee again and not having to think about every bite of food that enters my mouth. However, I am also thankful to be doing it this Lent. It has simplified my life in many ways to be eating the same thing every day and it has been the proving ground for some spiritual growth on my part.
Thank you, Jen, for sharing your experience with us! Visit ::Meditatio:: for more updates from her! Besides fasting this year, I'll be working on letting stuff go, and you can follow that series on Thursdays. Would you, dear reader, like to be notified when new posts go up? Sign up for the VIP List!