The "haiku and humor" format was a little to narrow. I've expanded the scope of this blog, mostly because I have a question and this blog seemed a good place to post it.
I've always wanted to fast during Ramadan (spelling?) but never done it. A lady I work with is of the Bahai faith and she shared with me that the Bahai have a similar fasting period, which started two days ago. I decided to join her during her fasting period. Or at least for the month of March. Fasting in the case of the Bahai tradition is no food or drink, including water, from sunup to sundown.
My primary reason for fasting is to build empathy for those that are forced to experience hunger everyday. I'm also exploring hunger as a spiritual cleanser of sorts.
My question is this: Does the Christian faith have a similar tradition in which one of the primary goals of the tradition is to build empathy with the less fortunate?
2 comments:
Maybe you should force all comments to be in haiku form instead? No? Oh well, that's probably for the best.
There's a fasting page on Wikipedia you might find interesting, it outlines fasting rituals in various faiths around the world.
The closest Christian tradition I can think of is fasting during Lent, but the rules on that have gotten extremely lenient, at least in America. But the intent was never on empathizing with the suffering of "others", I believe it was to honor the sacrifice of Christ as he spent 40 days in the wilderness.
Jews fast on six days of the year, but again the purpose is not to encourage empathy for others, it's very self-directed.
I think the notion of suffering for the sake of understanding the suffering others have gone through is a fairly modern concept, but I admit I don't have the research to really back that up.
Unfortunately I need to run now, I just remembered there's a Ho-Ho I left on the counter I need to go scarf.
I think you and Will are the only ones still checking this blog. :-) Thanks for the comment! And for the wikipedia site. Remind me to shove a Ho-Ho up your nose the next time I see you, punk. It'll help you build empathy for people that have Ho-Hos up their noses.
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