The Fast

In the Christian world, I feel like there has been a surge in the popularity of fasts lately, at least where I live (which is in the middle of a field). There are all kinds of fasts-Daniel fast, water fast, bread and water fast-and while I believe in fasting, I also think it’s easy to get caught up in the craze.

If you’re a type-A personality like me (I only recently figured out I was type-A. I can feel my mother shaking her head at me) fasting can turn in to this messed-up, spiritually fueled competition. This is my hypothetical conversation-hint: it has happened

“I fasted for 24 hours today!” (Me doing backflips at my physical and spiritual discipline)

“Oh, good for you. I’m fasting this week. Third day with no food!”

Alisha crying out to God, “Why! Why did you make me to need food so much! Why can’t I be super spiritual like (insert name here)! 

I’m actually getting away from my point, which was: There are a lot of different kind of fasts. And yesterday I ended one that was actually really rewarding for me. If you’ve read my earlier posts, you know my feeling on fasting are no food=Alisha feels like she’s dying/turns into marauding ogre who feasts on the tears of children. If you haven’t read my earlier posts, you’re jumping ahead of yourself in the Saga of Alisha, and should turn back to read the earlier posts before you drown in the deep waters I’m swimming in these days.

Just kidding.

Anyways, for those of you who don’t know me well, I am a book addict. Seriously, books are like heroin for me. Or maybe not, because people can kick their opiate addiction. More correctly, for me, books are like air. I can’t get by without them. I’m always reading something, and have been since I learned how to read. If we’re going to start counting how many books I’ve read-well, I doubt you could. I out grew three school libraries and two public ones, and the books that I own fit (mostly) into a fifty gallon storage bin when I moved to Mexico. Don’t even get me started on the trauma of weeding out what was going to stay and what was going to go, and worse, which of my babies was coming with me when I moved to Mexico. Words can’t describe the pain of that experience.

I started reading at a very young age...

I don’t read just any books, but the way. I read fiction. Pure fiction. Novels are my drug of choice, if you will. While the occasional non-fiction title has made it onto my to-read list(s), they rarely actually get read, and when they do, any feeling of triumph-hey, look at me, I am smart!-is soon replaced with the normalcy of the staggering amount of fiction I’m capable of reading.

So when God started challenging me to put the books down a couple of months ago, you can imagine how I took that. To say I didn’t want to is putting it lightly. I actually spent a couple of months ignoring that niggling feeling I had that I wasn’t explicitly following what I felt was God’s will for my life before I finally cracked. After all, reading is good for you. Everyone says so. What finally broke me was taking a real hard look at what I was reading. On a scale of Shakespeare and ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ equals vegetables and Dr. Seuss and ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ equals candy-well, I was eating more than my share of candy in this equation.

I quit. Cold turkey. It was awful.

Okay, I’m being a little dramatic. I didn’t quit reading-I just quit reading fiction. I went on a fast, for my spiritual wellbeing. For three weeks I read what I personally refer to as ‘God books’ (books on Christian life and spirituality, etc.) and non-fiction. As opposed to the whopping twenty-two novels and one God book I read in the month of March, during the three weeks of my fast in April I only read six books. And while I realize that that’s still a lot more than a normal person reads in a month, it’s not much for me.

During my fiction fast, I actually realized a couple of things (Alisha had a spiritual revelation during a fast! I’ll alert the media!) that I want to share with you. Take what you will from the gems of my wisdom:

1.    Your brain is a muscle, too.

I’m not in school anymore. I loved school. I miss school. But I reached the conclusion that, while I could stay in school happily forever and earn several doctorate degrees, a) that wasn’t something God was calling me to and b) I would be sent to debtor’s prison for unpaid student loans after the second doctorate. However, I’ve found (during my hiatus from fiction) that non-fiction is the perfect balm for my school-free life. With non-fiction, my crazy little hamster brain can happily read and obsess about the topics it loves to think about, like Salem Witch Trials: Mass hysteria or spiritual warfare? I read a 500-page book about the history of coffee this month, and I actually enjoyed it.

The point of this paragraph: the only way to fight the stuporificational* process of life is to keep learning, and my medium of choice is books.

2.    When you don’t spend all your time reading, you have time for other things, too.

Part of my fast was to also limit the time that I was spending reading. Instead of spending my Saturday afternoons happily consuming novels, I instead chose to spend time playing with my kids, working out, and hanging out with friends. At first I was a little lost-I have no book/ipad in my hands, what do I do?-but soon, I actually found myself lowering my antisocial protective shields out of sheer boredom. Maybe I will never be the most social person in the world, but these past few weeks went a long way towards convincing me I am more interpersonal than I thought I was.

3.    You really are what you eat (read: consume).

There’s so much media hype about eating right and exercising, people don’t realize that you become what you put in your brain, as well. The things you read, listen to, watch-they all make their way into your inner consciousness. Are you reading what you should? What are you listening to? For me, this revelation was underlined by how my perspective changed when I changed my steady diet of novels to books about parenting, teaching methods, history, and most importantly, God. 

The change was astonishing; instead of dwelling on the things about home I missed, I was thinking about a quote I had read in Mark Batterson’s ‘The Circle Maker.’ Instead of wondering when I’ll ever fall in love (seriously, I don’t know if you people know this, but novels are always about love. At least, the interesting ones. Does not always make for a happy single person, let me tell you.), I was thinking about the awesomeness of Jen Hatmaker’s book ‘Seven’ and how she challenged me to change the ways I look at excess, in both the spiritual and physical. Maybe it’s not the most profound realization, but I think it’s an important one.

So, there you have it. I survived. I know that for your lives, this probably won’t have the same impact, but I’m just going to boil everything I just said to one final point.

                 Everything in moderation.

Because I am a crazy person, with type-A tendencies and a need to try to be awesome at everything, I could go the complete wrong direction with this. I could convince myself that novels are bad, give them up completely (or more accurately, try) and only ever read non-fiction, feeling guilty anytime I read anything else. I could swing it in a spiritual direction, and try to only read books about God. Ever.

And I would be setting myself up for failure. Why? Because you need to do things in moderation.

So there’s where I’m at this week, guys. I’m still working on a plan to not read too much fiction, or even too much in general-trying to keep things in moderation, as I said. In the meantime, tonight I’m going to enjoy cracking open my first fiction title in a while-and if anyone ever needs a book recommendation, I’m here for you guys. It’s what I do.

*I think I just invented this word. I may copyright it on a basis of sheer awesomeness

Sorry for the long post, but that was some quality blogging there! In case you’re new to this blog (and you’ve made it all the way to the end of this wondering post) I’m Alisha, and this little blog is just me, writing about my kids, my dreams, and my struggles. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and that it has touched you in some way-because that’s my main goal-and please, feel free to peruse the rest of the site. If you would like to contact me, you can always email me at alishatomsen@lovehopemercy.org. If you would like to help me out in any way, your prayers are appreciated and do more than you and I could ever know. If you would like to support me financially, please contact accounting@lovehopemercy.org or send a check to Living Hope International, P.O Box 116, West Bend, Wisconsin 53095 with my name, Alisha Tomsen, in the memo line of the check.