There wasn't much of a day 8, actually. Within a couple hours of posting my last entry, I lay in bed dreaming of all kinds of food, feeling weak and wasted. I finally got up and fixed a small spinach salad, ate 1/3 of a banana, and had a small piece of cheese and some melba toast.
Oh well.
As I said, most of fasting is psychological, and something happened to me during the Mardi Gras meal yesterday- probably a combination of the food and the heavily tobacco-poisoned atmosphere, which had me feeling like I was going to die after being in that environment for two hours. Psychologically, I wanted fixing, and bad.
Other than losing 10 pounds, and finding out more about the mess in Iraq, which continues to be generally murky as far as information goes, there is one unexpected benefit to this experience: I started journaling again.
From 1982 till 1996, I kept a journal. Since I got saved in '84, it was interesting to look back at those particular entries. but for the most part, looking over the journals in 1996, what I saw was too much introspection, self-flogging, and depressing insights. So, while housemoving in the spring of '96, I tossed my journals out. I saved excerpts from entries having to do with getting saved. I was never much of a keeper of things I though had outlived their usefulnes. It wasn't the kind of stuff I wanted anyone reading after I was gone, anyway.
What I'll do with these entries is copy them into a Word file, and keep adding to them daily for my own amusement. I read not too long ago in Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac about a writer who kept a journal all of his life. in which he simply sketched out in a few words what he did that day. Now that's my kind of journaling. Enough of this introspection business! If I remember a few things about a certain day a number of years ago, that tends to trigger more complete memories of the day. This is something completely useless, I suppose, but, as I said, it amuses me. Ok, so I'm 53. Better late than never getting started on this sort of thing. It will be fun to read when I'm 80 and beginning to forget things.
A final word about Iraq: I continue to pray for the region, and continue to be concerned, and continue to believe that if one looks at the situation politically, one is missing the most significant factor. What is really important is what is happening there in the spiritual realm, and how that fits with Biblical prophecy.
I myself tend to think that the Second Coming will be a fairly long time coming- maybe as much as 200 years, if for no other reason than the preponderance of Biblical "scholars" who grow progressively more hysterical at the latest signs of the coming of the Antichrist, or the immanence of the Great Tribulation.
But I digress. Perhaps the most key insight about Iraq that I've read in the last couple months is this, from some unremembered journalist or pundit: "What we have done in Iraq is walk into a 1,000 year-old civil war between Sunni and Shia," or word to that effect. This thought, perhaps more than anything else I've read, defines the situation there most succinctly.
But on the other hand, with 150,000 troops there, surely at least 10-20,000 of them are people who know and love the Lord. What, one wonders, is the effect they are having on the region? These are people who know the Creator, love and pray for the Iraqi people, and perhaps are involved with getting Bibles into the hands of its citizens. The word is that thousands of Iraqis are getting saved, and churches are springing up all over the place. Will we ever read about this in the secular press? What do you think?
The mass conversions of millions of people in the Third World to Christianity, in lands mostly south of the equator, and in the southern and rural US, is perhaps the biggest underreported event of the last 50 years. That's not my view, but the view of a secular author who recently wrote a book on this subject. Sorry, I don't remember who this person was, nor the title of his book, so you have to trust I'm telling the truth.
"God is using the US as a policeman in the world," a Greek friend of mine said recently. He didn't mean it negatively at all. In his view, what many see as the imperial overreaching of American power, he views as part of how the Lord uses nations against one another as a mechanism of correction and judgment. This, by the way, in no way expresses the view of the average Greek, nor of the average Greek Christian.
I'll keep this blog up for a week or so, then I'll delete it. Thanks for praying-----Dan
Monday, February 12, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Day 7
So much for the easy phase beginning. Today was probably the most difficult I've had so far. This was mainly due to the school function we went to held at a local reception hall. Greek Mardi Gras was last Thursday, and this was a celebration of sorts for the school kids, where everyone wore costumes- I counted about 10 spidermen, 85 princesses, 5 supermen, and assorted skeletal, devil, court jester, and horror movie types.The place reeked of smoke and had a sound system that peaked at about 130 decibles even though we sat in the back, and I sat there for two hours soaking in the poisonous atmosphere and watching people gorge on souvlaki, pork chops, salads, feta, and white wine.
"You look pale," Zoe said to me at one point. I felt pale. And hungry. SO hungry. I was entitled to a plate of food with my ticket, which I surrendered to Zoe and her sister, who promptly made short work of it because we had come late and they were hungry, too. It was the memory of the sight perfectly grilled meat that haunted me the rest of the day. This is where I don't really understand a lot of fasting blogs I read. "I served a 7-course mel to my family today and wasn't tempted once," a woman on her 25th day of a fast might say. I say she's lying. I was hungry, and seriously hungry, every single day of my 23-day fast in '03. Ditto for this one so far.
My tongue is constantly white. I try brushing the color out with a toothbrush, but it stays white. So I figure my tongue is the main venue for the release of toxins in my system, since the temperatures are cool and I'm not sweating.
We played good cop/bad cop at Sunday school today. Zoe did the class, and I participated with a sketchboard message.Greeks are rather disorderly, and today's Sunday school class was no exception. One in particular was incredibly disruptive; so I singled her out and asked her if this is the way she behaved in regular school. I told her as kindly as I could that if she were bored, she could go downstairs and sit with her mom. I was angry, and she knew it. I didn't say it, but I was getting a little tired of her disrespecting my wife. She was duly mortified and was quiet the rest of the class. Zoe singled her out for special attention so she wouldn't feel too crushed, but the kid needed to be put in her place, and firmly.
"You look pale," Zoe said to me at one point. I felt pale. And hungry. SO hungry. I was entitled to a plate of food with my ticket, which I surrendered to Zoe and her sister, who promptly made short work of it because we had come late and they were hungry, too. It was the memory of the sight perfectly grilled meat that haunted me the rest of the day. This is where I don't really understand a lot of fasting blogs I read. "I served a 7-course mel to my family today and wasn't tempted once," a woman on her 25th day of a fast might say. I say she's lying. I was hungry, and seriously hungry, every single day of my 23-day fast in '03. Ditto for this one so far.
My tongue is constantly white. I try brushing the color out with a toothbrush, but it stays white. So I figure my tongue is the main venue for the release of toxins in my system, since the temperatures are cool and I'm not sweating.
We played good cop/bad cop at Sunday school today. Zoe did the class, and I participated with a sketchboard message.Greeks are rather disorderly, and today's Sunday school class was no exception. One in particular was incredibly disruptive; so I singled her out and asked her if this is the way she behaved in regular school. I told her as kindly as I could that if she were bored, she could go downstairs and sit with her mom. I was angry, and she knew it. I didn't say it, but I was getting a little tired of her disrespecting my wife. She was duly mortified and was quiet the rest of the class. Zoe singled her out for special attention so she wouldn't feel too crushed, but the kid needed to be put in her place, and firmly.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Day 6
Weight: 239 pounds Lost: 10
I've taken to marking my wall calendar with a big "X" on the days I successfully fast, and have just put up my sixth "X." If I look at it that way, there are only 2 1/2 more weeks of "X's" till the end of the month, and of the fast.
I've noticed that when I put my socks on in the morning it no longer feels like I'm holding a basketball in my lap and am trying to bend over it. Now it's more like a roll of flab, which is a big improvement. I also have noticed that I don't have as much crud in my eyes when I wake up. For the last ten years or so, every morning when I wake up I've had a film covering the corners of my eyes like a couple crescent moons that loosened within a few minutes and made my vision blurry until I either rinsed my eyes or rubbed the film out. I asked an eye specialist about this some years ago and he recommended that I rinse my eyes with warm water in the morning and assured me it was nothing.
Today I didn't go out at all, neither did I do any exercise. I spent time reading on the internet, and working on video editing (home movie stuff). I had another poor night of sleep last night, waking frequently, rising at 6, going back to bed at 8, and sleeping in till 10:30. Hey, it's Saturday.
I would like to take a walk before I go to bed. My fast started at 9PM Greek time 6 days ago, and that is about the time I add to this blog.
I may be moving into what people in the know call the "easy phase" of extended fasting: that's from days 6-9 or so till 15-20 or so. Your body has given up expecting to digest solid food, and has gotten used to the liquid diet. Yesterday, other than oranges, and lemons (diluted 10-1), I didn't have any fresh juice, and felt its absence. I had a couple quarts of store juice which, though it tasted great, did not feed me like the stuff from the juicer. Today I juiced, both in the morning and evening, a lot of spinach with a little celery mixed in (about 2 cups total juice), and about a quart total of carrot and apple juice. The spinach and carrot in particular are what I call "vitamin bombs:" there is so much good stuff packed into these two vegetables that you get a lift similar to that of drinking a cup of coffee, without the jitters.
Juicing is pretty time-consuming, what with having to clean the fruits and vegetables, juice them, and clean up later, a process requiring about a half-hour, but you could spend the same amount of time cooking a meal. I juice more than I need and share with Zoe and Cathy. Not surprisingly, Cathy doesn't like spinach juice, but she loves carrot/apple juice.
I find myself less concerned about time and more methodical in my movements. Yesterday it took me the better part f an hour to shave, prepare for a shower, and scrub myself twice from soles to scalp with a bath brush, trying to remove dead skin and anything secreted through my pores.
A blog called "US Cavalry OnPoint" has this interesting headline today:
"ON Point in Iraq: Marines "Hit the Jackpot" at Village near Fallujah"
And "The Fourth Rail" has the following:
"Coalition forces received a big break yesterday, with the arrest of a close aide to Abu Ayyu al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Masri's aide was captured at a gas station in Mahmoudiya, a city just south of Baghdad. The unnamed aide met al-Masri within a day of his capture."
I continue to think and pray about the situation in Iraq. I've also started reading two books I've read portions of before but haven't completed them: "Calvin's Institutes," in an elegant modern translation, and Dallas Willard's wonderful "The Divine Conspiracy."
I've taken to marking my wall calendar with a big "X" on the days I successfully fast, and have just put up my sixth "X." If I look at it that way, there are only 2 1/2 more weeks of "X's" till the end of the month, and of the fast.
I've noticed that when I put my socks on in the morning it no longer feels like I'm holding a basketball in my lap and am trying to bend over it. Now it's more like a roll of flab, which is a big improvement. I also have noticed that I don't have as much crud in my eyes when I wake up. For the last ten years or so, every morning when I wake up I've had a film covering the corners of my eyes like a couple crescent moons that loosened within a few minutes and made my vision blurry until I either rinsed my eyes or rubbed the film out. I asked an eye specialist about this some years ago and he recommended that I rinse my eyes with warm water in the morning and assured me it was nothing.
Today I didn't go out at all, neither did I do any exercise. I spent time reading on the internet, and working on video editing (home movie stuff). I had another poor night of sleep last night, waking frequently, rising at 6, going back to bed at 8, and sleeping in till 10:30. Hey, it's Saturday.
I would like to take a walk before I go to bed. My fast started at 9PM Greek time 6 days ago, and that is about the time I add to this blog.
I may be moving into what people in the know call the "easy phase" of extended fasting: that's from days 6-9 or so till 15-20 or so. Your body has given up expecting to digest solid food, and has gotten used to the liquid diet. Yesterday, other than oranges, and lemons (diluted 10-1), I didn't have any fresh juice, and felt its absence. I had a couple quarts of store juice which, though it tasted great, did not feed me like the stuff from the juicer. Today I juiced, both in the morning and evening, a lot of spinach with a little celery mixed in (about 2 cups total juice), and about a quart total of carrot and apple juice. The spinach and carrot in particular are what I call "vitamin bombs:" there is so much good stuff packed into these two vegetables that you get a lift similar to that of drinking a cup of coffee, without the jitters.
Juicing is pretty time-consuming, what with having to clean the fruits and vegetables, juice them, and clean up later, a process requiring about a half-hour, but you could spend the same amount of time cooking a meal. I juice more than I need and share with Zoe and Cathy. Not surprisingly, Cathy doesn't like spinach juice, but she loves carrot/apple juice.
I find myself less concerned about time and more methodical in my movements. Yesterday it took me the better part f an hour to shave, prepare for a shower, and scrub myself twice from soles to scalp with a bath brush, trying to remove dead skin and anything secreted through my pores.
A blog called "US Cavalry OnPoint" has this interesting headline today:
"ON Point in Iraq: Marines "Hit the Jackpot" at Village near Fallujah"
And "The Fourth Rail" has the following:
"Coalition forces received a big break yesterday, with the arrest of a close aide to Abu Ayyu al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Masri's aide was captured at a gas station in Mahmoudiya, a city just south of Baghdad. The unnamed aide met al-Masri within a day of his capture."
I continue to think and pray about the situation in Iraq. I've also started reading two books I've read portions of before but haven't completed them: "Calvin's Institutes," in an elegant modern translation, and Dallas Willard's wonderful "The Divine Conspiracy."
Friday, February 9, 2007
Day 5
Yep, just finished my 5th day and I am fairly hungry. I may have made a slight mistake buying banana juice at the local supermarket- because I read later that it is not really juice, but 20% pureed bananas, which I think caused my digestive system to start working again and would explain my hunger today.
In Slate Magazine I read this interesting article by their "Human Guinea Pig" Emily Yoffe who subtitles her series "Humiliating myself for fun and profit." It's about life on a calorie-restricted diet.
Slate also has an ongoing series called "Blogging The Bible" by David Plotz, who comes up with some fresh insight into the Bible as seen through the eyes of a a non-practicing Jew. His writing style is breezy and funny, and pretty irreverent, but that's the way non-believers are. He's still entertaining and insightful. I read with regret that he won't blog the NT, which is too bad, because he might have gotten saved doing so.
Greece has great juices. Today, along with the banana, I bought a liter of pomegranate, and some combination juices.
I walked a fair bit today, and exercised some. I spent some time at my friend James McKee's house helping him with some video stuff. James is a good guy, a Christian worker with WEC who will be leaving the country and going back to the UK with his family in a couple months. He'll be missed.
The Jawa Report has this today:
"Coalition forces in Iraq have delivered a series of stunning blows to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last 48 hours." He concludes his post with the following: "So, will you see this in the news? No. You. Won't."
In Slate Magazine I read this interesting article by their "Human Guinea Pig" Emily Yoffe who subtitles her series "Humiliating myself for fun and profit." It's about life on a calorie-restricted diet.
Slate also has an ongoing series called "Blogging The Bible" by David Plotz, who comes up with some fresh insight into the Bible as seen through the eyes of a a non-practicing Jew. His writing style is breezy and funny, and pretty irreverent, but that's the way non-believers are. He's still entertaining and insightful. I read with regret that he won't blog the NT, which is too bad, because he might have gotten saved doing so.
Greece has great juices. Today, along with the banana, I bought a liter of pomegranate, and some combination juices.
I walked a fair bit today, and exercised some. I spent some time at my friend James McKee's house helping him with some video stuff. James is a good guy, a Christian worker with WEC who will be leaving the country and going back to the UK with his family in a couple months. He'll be missed.
The Jawa Report has this today:
"Coalition forces in Iraq have delivered a series of stunning blows to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last 48 hours." He concludes his post with the following: "So, will you see this in the news? No. You. Won't."
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Day 4
Here I am galloping to the last minutes of my fourth full day of fasting. Last night, at last, I had good sleep. And today, though I was hungry, was by far the easiest day so far. As I was saying yesterday, you need about 3 days to get into this thing. I think that's the point where your digestive system shuts down, and your stomach and innards no longer expect to be breaking down and pushing along solid food.
We just had a wonderful time of visiting and praying with probably the most dynamic Greek Christian worker in the country, Elias Armenis. He has been reaching out to drug addicts and homeless in central Athens' Omonia square for the last 25 years or so. Every summer he organizes a team and goes out to various regions and islands of Greece doing open air outreach. Zoe and I met on his outreach to the Western Islands, the "Eptanisia," during the summer of '99, during which Elias had me do the sketchboard as sort of an appendix to his nightly meetings. He is one of the few workers in this country who has a genuine anointing from the Lord to do his work.
We'll be helping him this summer with personal and sketchboard evangelism as well as video work, as he will be in our area of northern Greece. Elias has a web site which can be found here.
We just had a wonderful time of visiting and praying with probably the most dynamic Greek Christian worker in the country, Elias Armenis. He has been reaching out to drug addicts and homeless in central Athens' Omonia square for the last 25 years or so. Every summer he organizes a team and goes out to various regions and islands of Greece doing open air outreach. Zoe and I met on his outreach to the Western Islands, the "Eptanisia," during the summer of '99, during which Elias had me do the sketchboard as sort of an appendix to his nightly meetings. He is one of the few workers in this country who has a genuine anointing from the Lord to do his work.
We'll be helping him this summer with personal and sketchboard evangelism as well as video work, as he will be in our area of northern Greece. Elias has a web site which can be found here.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Day 3
Weight: 244 pounds Lost: 5 pounds
Yeah, that's one of the immediately gratifying things about fasting: instant weight loss. The only problem with it is that after the fast your body remembers that it was starving, hoards the nourishment you give it, and you gain weight that much faster. So you have to really cut down on the eating, after the fast, if you want to stay skinny. Jerry Falwell did 2 40-day fasts in the last few years, and he's just as porky now as he's always been. I was skinny all my life, till my early 40's. Here's hoping I can be more disciplined in the future.
The third day of these things have always been particularly difficult for me, and this time was no exception. But I feel fairly tough mentally, and am cautiously optimistic that I can keep this up for another...how many days? 21? Yikes. Oh well. A lot of people do this for 40 days and swear that it isn't very difficult. I only know personally one person who went 40 days while I was around him, and it was incredibly difficult for him. I suspect that not eating is not all that difficult after the first 7 days or so, but the spiritual part of it is hard. We have an enemy who is aware of the power God can release through this discipline, and he'll do what he can to mess us up.
I have to confess that I am not getting up for early morning walks like I planned. Here's hoping I can start that. It's been chilly in the morning and you're a lot more sensitive to the cold when you don't eat.
Here are some interesting thoughts from the Iraqi blog "Iraq the Model," which can be found here. (This is in reference to the huge bomb that went off in the market a couple days ago that killed over 100 people.):
"I was with a friend on our way home yesterday when we were shocked by the sound of a powerful explosion. We looked in all directions trying to figure out where it was but there was nothing to indicate where the bomb, or whatever it was, went off...Soon a plume of thick smoke was rising from the ground... Minutes later I saw the first reports on TV talking about a huge explosion in al-Sadriya market and casualty tolls were increasing every other minute—25, then 40, then 75…an hour later news was talking bout more than a hundred killed in what the media like to call a "predominantly Shia neighborhood" Al-Sadriya (the place the bomb went off) doesn't belong to a certain sect; it's a commercial area where shoppers and shopkeepers are simply Baghdadis but sadly the media is keen on adding sectarian descriptions of the attacked targets in their reports. "
And then there is this by Iranian journalist Amer Taheri in the NY Post:
"The truth, however, is that, although there is a great deal of killing in Iraq, there is no civil war in any reasonable sense of that term.
Yeah, that's one of the immediately gratifying things about fasting: instant weight loss. The only problem with it is that after the fast your body remembers that it was starving, hoards the nourishment you give it, and you gain weight that much faster. So you have to really cut down on the eating, after the fast, if you want to stay skinny. Jerry Falwell did 2 40-day fasts in the last few years, and he's just as porky now as he's always been. I was skinny all my life, till my early 40's. Here's hoping I can be more disciplined in the future.
The third day of these things have always been particularly difficult for me, and this time was no exception. But I feel fairly tough mentally, and am cautiously optimistic that I can keep this up for another...how many days? 21? Yikes. Oh well. A lot of people do this for 40 days and swear that it isn't very difficult. I only know personally one person who went 40 days while I was around him, and it was incredibly difficult for him. I suspect that not eating is not all that difficult after the first 7 days or so, but the spiritual part of it is hard. We have an enemy who is aware of the power God can release through this discipline, and he'll do what he can to mess us up.
I have to confess that I am not getting up for early morning walks like I planned. Here's hoping I can start that. It's been chilly in the morning and you're a lot more sensitive to the cold when you don't eat.
Here are some interesting thoughts from the Iraqi blog "Iraq the Model," which can be found here. (This is in reference to the huge bomb that went off in the market a couple days ago that killed over 100 people.):
"I was with a friend on our way home yesterday when we were shocked by the sound of a powerful explosion. We looked in all directions trying to figure out where it was but there was nothing to indicate where the bomb, or whatever it was, went off...Soon a plume of thick smoke was rising from the ground... Minutes later I saw the first reports on TV talking about a huge explosion in al-Sadriya market and casualty tolls were increasing every other minute—25, then 40, then 75…an hour later news was talking bout more than a hundred killed in what the media like to call a "predominantly Shia neighborhood" Al-Sadriya (the place the bomb went off) doesn't belong to a certain sect; it's a commercial area where shoppers and shopkeepers are simply Baghdadis but sadly the media is keen on adding sectarian descriptions of the attacked targets in their reports. "
And then there is this by Iranian journalist Amer Taheri in the NY Post:
"The truth, however, is that, although there is a great deal of killing in Iraq, there is no civil war in any reasonable sense of that term.
"Sectarian war" is also hard to sustain. Although there is killing prompted by sectarian hatred, what we have today is a war of the sectarians, not a sectarian war. The difference is not mere semantics.
In a sectarian war, the overwhelming majorities of rival religious sects subscribe to the aims of their own side and actively participate in their pursuit. I saw this in the '90s, when I covered the various wars in the former Yugoslavia....Nothing of the sort exists in Iraq today. The deadly disease of sectarianism has not contaminated the majority of Iraqis."
As I said, that it's a mess is undeniable. But I've always felt that things, eventually, will be more or less all right. And I'm doing the only thing I know how to do to help.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Day 2
Okey-dokey. I've gone 48 hours now without food. That means I'm already 1/12 of the way done with this fast.
I didn't sleep well last night at all: I woke up at 3:30 AM and was up on and off the rest of the night. I fell asleep around 4:30 and then Cathy fell out of bed and woke us up. She's got us trained pretty well. She just shouts wherever she is and we come running. She's got a great life and I'm happy for her. I was one of six with two working parents and sometimes you were just glad if your parents remembered your name. So if we spoil our kid a little I'm not going to feel to bad about it. I'd rather see her secure and happy through lots of parental attention than phobic and lonely.
I had a good time of prayer with Zoe this morning. She is a much better pray-er than I am. She prayed mostly for individuals we know and are concerned about, and I prayed in a more general sense about our gratitude to be rightly related to God, for the wife and daughter God has given me, and for the ability and resolve to please Him in our thoughts and actions. I pray and think about things in Iraq on and off all day long.
Around lunch time I took a walk to take my mind off of food. The idea was good- the timing wasn't. I can now state with 100% certainty that the meal of preference in my neighborhood this Tuesday was fish. The aroma of grilling frying fish didn't leave me for more than a few steps. Zoe and Cathy had grilled fish themselves downstairs at the mother in-laws'. This makes perfect sense since the street market was yesterday, and fresh fish is sold there, which only keeps a couple days, thus the wonderful smell of fish in the air on every street I walked down, for its entire length. After awhile I began to savor the smell as a way to eat vicariously, through my nose. Hey, there's no law against it.
When I was talking to Zoe about not getting angry as easy, last night, she made the point that when you eat, you feed the flesh, both spiritually and physically. And she's right. I love her for these kinds of insights. She tried to leave some comments for me from yesterday's blog. It's too much work. I told her send me an email. If you want to leave comments, see the email address up in the title description.
I didn't sleep well last night at all: I woke up at 3:30 AM and was up on and off the rest of the night. I fell asleep around 4:30 and then Cathy fell out of bed and woke us up. She's got us trained pretty well. She just shouts wherever she is and we come running. She's got a great life and I'm happy for her. I was one of six with two working parents and sometimes you were just glad if your parents remembered your name. So if we spoil our kid a little I'm not going to feel to bad about it. I'd rather see her secure and happy through lots of parental attention than phobic and lonely.
I had a good time of prayer with Zoe this morning. She is a much better pray-er than I am. She prayed mostly for individuals we know and are concerned about, and I prayed in a more general sense about our gratitude to be rightly related to God, for the wife and daughter God has given me, and for the ability and resolve to please Him in our thoughts and actions. I pray and think about things in Iraq on and off all day long.
Around lunch time I took a walk to take my mind off of food. The idea was good- the timing wasn't. I can now state with 100% certainty that the meal of preference in my neighborhood this Tuesday was fish. The aroma of grilling frying fish didn't leave me for more than a few steps. Zoe and Cathy had grilled fish themselves downstairs at the mother in-laws'. This makes perfect sense since the street market was yesterday, and fresh fish is sold there, which only keeps a couple days, thus the wonderful smell of fish in the air on every street I walked down, for its entire length. After awhile I began to savor the smell as a way to eat vicariously, through my nose. Hey, there's no law against it.
When I was talking to Zoe about not getting angry as easy, last night, she made the point that when you eat, you feed the flesh, both spiritually and physically. And she's right. I love her for these kinds of insights. She tried to leave some comments for me from yesterday's blog. It's too much work. I told her send me an email. If you want to leave comments, see the email address up in the title description.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Day 1
It's a bit chilly here in Thessaloniki today. Nothing like the -5 F in Chicago, though. After walking Cathy to school about a stone's throw from our house, we bought 60 pounds of oranges at the market today, and 5 pounds of spinach, all of which will get juiced up this week. Later I'll go out for apples and carrots.
A lot of fasting is mental. So far, half the day's gone and I don't feel too bad. Slightly hungry, with a barely noticeable headache. I got up at 6:30 instead of 6 because our neighbors upstairs were making all kinds of noise at 1AM. This is a fairly common occurrence, and one we have grown used to during the last 7 years. After a few choice words under my breath I prayed for them. Zoe was doing the same. But I wasn't able to get up early enough to take a walk. Instead I checked my email and found out accidentally that the Chicago Bears lost the Super Bowl. I was going to do a news blackout and have my younger brother Tom send a tape, but now he doesn't have to.
I've had a glass of orange juice, some raw lemon juice diluted in water, and two cups of vegetable broth. My stomach just growled. It's about lunch time.
Here's a quote from today's Mudville Gazette, one of the best military blogs out here, which says the surge in Bagdad has already started:
"As you read these words, American soldiers are counting ammunition, suicide bombers are preparing farewell videos, reporters are outlining stories, and speechwriters are typing furiously away."
9 hours later-
I'm closing in on my first 24 hours without food. I have a slight headache and feel slow, but that's normal. Some of the things I noticed about my last fast are already happening: my sense of taste is sharpened. When I drink fresh-squeezed orange juice, the taste is out of this world. Also, I'm not getting angry as easy. Greek drivers are incredibly rude and selfish, and love to get on your back and blow their horns. This happened to me tonight, and it didn't really faze me. I also tend to want to hurry Zoe up when she's talking too long to a friend, but this evening when she was doing this, I was content to wait her out. Especially since her talking in this case was praying. I've eliminated all of the solid waste out of my system.
A lot of fasting is mental. So far, half the day's gone and I don't feel too bad. Slightly hungry, with a barely noticeable headache. I got up at 6:30 instead of 6 because our neighbors upstairs were making all kinds of noise at 1AM. This is a fairly common occurrence, and one we have grown used to during the last 7 years. After a few choice words under my breath I prayed for them. Zoe was doing the same. But I wasn't able to get up early enough to take a walk. Instead I checked my email and found out accidentally that the Chicago Bears lost the Super Bowl. I was going to do a news blackout and have my younger brother Tom send a tape, but now he doesn't have to.
I've had a glass of orange juice, some raw lemon juice diluted in water, and two cups of vegetable broth. My stomach just growled. It's about lunch time.
Here's a quote from today's Mudville Gazette, one of the best military blogs out here, which says the surge in Bagdad has already started:
"As you read these words, American soldiers are counting ammunition, suicide bombers are preparing farewell videos, reporters are outlining stories, and speechwriters are typing furiously away."
9 hours later-
I'm closing in on my first 24 hours without food. I have a slight headache and feel slow, but that's normal. Some of the things I noticed about my last fast are already happening: my sense of taste is sharpened. When I drink fresh-squeezed orange juice, the taste is out of this world. Also, I'm not getting angry as easy. Greek drivers are incredibly rude and selfish, and love to get on your back and blow their horns. This happened to me tonight, and it didn't really faze me. I also tend to want to hurry Zoe up when she's talking too long to a friend, but this evening when she was doing this, I was content to wait her out. Especially since her talking in this case was praying. I've eliminated all of the solid waste out of my system.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Pre-fast, Day 4- Last Meal
Ok- so here I am sitting and eating my last meal- of the month (I hope). Tomorrow I'm going in for some long overdue blood work mainly to record the changes in my cholesterol before and after the fast. My meal is a raw spinach and cabbage salad, topped with a light dose of olive oil, feta, and oregano. I'm feeling a lot chippier today than the last few days, which means that I've worked all the caffeine out of my system.
I wasn't going to have any milk or bread products today, but this morning Cathy (6 yrs. old) spilled a bunch of Coco Puffs out of the box onto a woolen coverlet we had on a kitchen chair. Zoe asked me to put the cereal in a separate container. I scooped them into a bowl and had them for breakfast instead. I also compromised with the feta on my salad, but no one's perfect.
Lunch was boiled artichokes, peas, and potatoes. I had a piece- no, two pieces, of cake for dessert, which I shouldn't have, but as I said, no one's perfect.
Tomorrow we have the local "laiki-" street market where you can get cheap produce. I've learned that if you wait until 2:30, just before the market closes, you can get produce discounted by as much as 80%. I'll be getting a lot of spinach, carrots, apples, and oranges. I'll also get some beets and potatoes to boil into a broth with a little cayenne peeper and boullion to help with loss of salt.
My basic thing with fasting is that I can drink all the juice, water and broth I want- no limits. I read the journal of a guy who did a couple 40-day fasts on only one glass of juice a day and can only say, "More power to you." Even with an unlimited liquid diet I still tend to lose 1-2 pounds a day, and am flushing a lot of crud out of my system.
I want to go to bed early and get up around 6 or so and go for a brisk 30-60 minute walk every day. I found a website that enables me to download MP3 files for daily Bible listening, using the same plan that Tyndale has in their One Year Bible. I'll be listening to that as I walk. If you're interested, the site can be found here. (In case you haven't noticed, I just figured out how to do links. Hooray!)
I've promised my sister that if I start feeling really bad during this fast I'll quit. Personally, with all the reading I've done about fasts, this is a good thing for me to do for a lot of reasons, both physically and spiritually.
Cathy starts school at 8AM, so I want to get back home to spend time with Zoe in Bible study and prayer, which is our daily habit. By the way, this is a fairly recent habit. Zoe is a night person, and so is Cathy. I'm a morning person. But because Cathy has to get up early for school, that helps Zoe get up early, and we can pray for Cathy's day. The public school system in Greece is pretty chaotic, and I'll be getting into that later, no doubt.
All right, my salad bowl (actually a plastic half gallon ice cream container) sits empty on my desk. It's about 9PM Greek time. Thanks for following this blog and praying.
I wasn't going to have any milk or bread products today, but this morning Cathy (6 yrs. old) spilled a bunch of Coco Puffs out of the box onto a woolen coverlet we had on a kitchen chair. Zoe asked me to put the cereal in a separate container. I scooped them into a bowl and had them for breakfast instead. I also compromised with the feta on my salad, but no one's perfect.
Lunch was boiled artichokes, peas, and potatoes. I had a piece- no, two pieces, of cake for dessert, which I shouldn't have, but as I said, no one's perfect.
Tomorrow we have the local "laiki-" street market where you can get cheap produce. I've learned that if you wait until 2:30, just before the market closes, you can get produce discounted by as much as 80%. I'll be getting a lot of spinach, carrots, apples, and oranges. I'll also get some beets and potatoes to boil into a broth with a little cayenne peeper and boullion to help with loss of salt.
My basic thing with fasting is that I can drink all the juice, water and broth I want- no limits. I read the journal of a guy who did a couple 40-day fasts on only one glass of juice a day and can only say, "More power to you." Even with an unlimited liquid diet I still tend to lose 1-2 pounds a day, and am flushing a lot of crud out of my system.
I want to go to bed early and get up around 6 or so and go for a brisk 30-60 minute walk every day. I found a website that enables me to download MP3 files for daily Bible listening, using the same plan that Tyndale has in their One Year Bible. I'll be listening to that as I walk. If you're interested, the site can be found here. (In case you haven't noticed, I just figured out how to do links. Hooray!)
I've promised my sister that if I start feeling really bad during this fast I'll quit. Personally, with all the reading I've done about fasts, this is a good thing for me to do for a lot of reasons, both physically and spiritually.
Cathy starts school at 8AM, so I want to get back home to spend time with Zoe in Bible study and prayer, which is our daily habit. By the way, this is a fairly recent habit. Zoe is a night person, and so is Cathy. I'm a morning person. But because Cathy has to get up early for school, that helps Zoe get up early, and we can pray for Cathy's day. The public school system in Greece is pretty chaotic, and I'll be getting into that later, no doubt.
All right, my salad bowl (actually a plastic half gallon ice cream container) sits empty on my desk. It's about 9PM Greek time. Thanks for following this blog and praying.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Speaking of Iraq
Here's an excerpt from a pretty good article about how the current situation affects today's American political scene by classicist Victor David Hanson:
"We are in a rare period in American political history, in which the battlefield alone will determine the next election, perhaps not seen since 1864. The economy, scandal, social issues, domestic spending, jobs, all these usual criteria and more pale in comparison to what happens in Iraq, where a few thousand brave American soldiers will determine our collective future. "
The entire article can found at:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGM2Y2Q1YjYzYzc4NjhiYzI2NzliNGU4M2M4NzhkODk=
Here's another snippet:
" am increasingly convinced that the West is in denial of what is truly happening in the world. This self-delusion is the most dangerous response possible to the intense and rapid change all over the planet. This self-denial takes many forms, including obsessions with abstract issues of little real consequence, e.g., animal rights, capital punishment, celebrity gossip, political correctness, etc. It is accompanied by the rise of secular mandates and the suppression of spiritual values. It exhibits excesses of greed that threaten both capitalism and representative government.
"We are in a rare period in American political history, in which the battlefield alone will determine the next election, perhaps not seen since 1864. The economy, scandal, social issues, domestic spending, jobs, all these usual criteria and more pale in comparison to what happens in Iraq, where a few thousand brave American soldiers will determine our collective future. "
The entire article can found at:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGM2Y2Q1YjYzYzc4NjhiYzI2NzliNGU4M2M4NzhkODk=
Here's another snippet:
" am increasingly convinced that the West is in denial of what is truly happening in the world. This self-delusion is the most dangerous response possible to the intense and rapid change all over the planet. This self-denial takes many forms, including obsessions with abstract issues of little real consequence, e.g., animal rights, capital punishment, celebrity gossip, political correctness, etc. It is accompanied by the rise of secular mandates and the suppression of spiritual values. It exhibits excesses of greed that threaten both capitalism and representative government.
The malign forces that conspire against the West (in contrast to the benign forces which only wish to compete with it), however, are not paralyzed. They are moving and growing at great speed."
And that article can be found here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/the_west_is_in_a_trance.html
Yuck
I haven't been feeling too hot the last couple days. I've had a constant low-level headache (probably caffeine withdrawal). No energy, and not really looking forward to this fast. I know what a job it is, so I don't have illusions as to how I'll be feeling the next 4 weeks or so. It's funny- I feel as if I'm already fasting without actually fasting. That's a first. The last time I fasted for longer than a day was 12 days in January of '04. My intention then was to fast for 30-40 days. I did the same diet change I'm doing now, and I remember how easy the first few days were because I had eaten mostly vegetables and fruit in the days before I started.. I stopped because I felt I was coming down with a bug, and wanted to be able to fight it.
Anyway, that's why I'm blogging this- so I can benefit from prayer.
I would say that I'm around 30 pounds overweight. One of the benefits of long-term fasting, a friend of mine who has done 40-day fasts twice says, is that it changes your attitude toward food. I need an attitude change toward food.
Tomorrow will be my last day of solid food, and then it's on to liquids.
Anyway, that's why I'm blogging this- so I can benefit from prayer.
I would say that I'm around 30 pounds overweight. One of the benefits of long-term fasting, a friend of mine who has done 40-day fasts twice says, is that it changes your attitude toward food. I need an attitude change toward food.
Tomorrow will be my last day of solid food, and then it's on to liquids.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Pre-Fast, Day 2-3
Yesterday I stayed away from meat and caffeine again. I'm still a day or two away from de-toxing the caffeine in my system, so I've been feeling sluggish. I think it takes 4 days for you to flush caffeine out of your system. I was drinking 1-4 cups of strong tea a day, which isn't that much caffeine, but there you have it. I've pretty much been eating as much as I want, but with a restricted diet. Yesterday it was juice, salads and lima beans, and some baklava, a flaky, nutty, honey-soaked Greek sweet.
Today it'll be raw or boiled vegetables, maybe a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and salads. This winter I've been eating raw cabbage and spinach salads, with olives, feta, and olive oil. Today I'll cut out the feta and cut down on the oil.
The weather the last few weeks in Greece has been very pleasant- sunny with highs in the 50s-60s. Things are cooling down now, which makes it feel more like winter. Still and all it's warm compared to where I'm from, the Chicago area.
I've already had some opposition to this fast. The day before yesterday I received a pretty nasty email from an old friend who had misunderstood something I'd recently said. I had to fight back the desire to reply in kind, and sent a nice answer, and got an apology in return. But then I got into a disagreement with my wife and was not nearly so gracious, and had to do some backtracking of my own. This, in a sense, might be good in that it shows I'm doing what God wants me to do right now, and Mr. S., as Zoe likes to call him, does not like it.
weight: 113 kilos 249 pounds
Today it'll be raw or boiled vegetables, maybe a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and salads. This winter I've been eating raw cabbage and spinach salads, with olives, feta, and olive oil. Today I'll cut out the feta and cut down on the oil.
The weather the last few weeks in Greece has been very pleasant- sunny with highs in the 50s-60s. Things are cooling down now, which makes it feel more like winter. Still and all it's warm compared to where I'm from, the Chicago area.
I've already had some opposition to this fast. The day before yesterday I received a pretty nasty email from an old friend who had misunderstood something I'd recently said. I had to fight back the desire to reply in kind, and sent a nice answer, and got an apology in return. But then I got into a disagreement with my wife and was not nearly so gracious, and had to do some backtracking of my own. This, in a sense, might be good in that it shows I'm doing what God wants me to do right now, and Mr. S., as Zoe likes to call him, does not like it.
weight: 113 kilos 249 pounds
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Why I'm Doing This
Well, let me just say this: I hate extended fasting. It's difficult. I've read a lot of things that say that after day 9 or 10 that you start to have a lot of energy because your system has cleaned itself out and stuff, but all I've ever felt in fasting more than a day or so is empty and hungry and weak.
Having said that, there are certain things that cannot be accomplished without fasting and prayer. One is losing weight. Just joking. But losing weight is one of the pleasant side effects of fasting. My main purpose for fasting this month is my concern over the situation in
There are two things I'm sure about the
Trying to understand what is going on in
At any rate, we know that things are messy there because war is always messy. And chaotic. We live right next door to the region. I've always been concerned with the West's failure of nerve to deal with the general threat of Islamic fascism, and I would like to see some form of democracy take root in
Ok, that's my main reason for fasting. Other reasons are listed as follows, in no particular order of importance:
To be cleaner in my thoughts and actions.
To establish a deeper and longer time of daily devotions.
To see Greeks come to God.
To have a healthy relationship with my wife and daughter, and mother in-law.
To be more disciplined generally. I tend to let the events of the day shape my day, rather that shaping those events through a systematic use of my time. This winter I will be starting the last course of studies for my bachelor's degree which, if all goes well, I'll get in June. I'm also getting my second novel into shape, and am starting a third. This third novel is going to be a pretty big book if I do it right. Zoe is still translating the first novel into Greek, and then we'll look for a Greek publisher. Winter is an excellent time for writing and study, and I need to use what is left of it to do just that.
Pre-fast day 1
I need to spend a few days working up to this thing. So I quit caffeine two days ago, and meat today. Tomorrow I'm going to go to raw vegetables and fruits and fruit juices, and some yogurt and fassolia, a Greek lima bean meal in a tomato sauce. I plan on actually starting not eating anything on the 5th, for a 24-day fast. I have to admit that I'm anxious about this, because I've failed the last 3 times I started an extended fast, and haven't done one since 2003.
I'll mainly be dealing with physical symptoms during this fast, and sharing short thoughts related to my prayer and devotional life. I hope this isn't boring, and I need prayer to see this through.
I'll mainly be dealing with physical symptoms during this fast, and sharing short thoughts related to my prayer and devotional life. I hope this isn't boring, and I need prayer to see this through.
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