Conversation Overheard

or, fasting is necesssary for material prudence.

I have a homeroom full of high school seniors. I generally keep it simple to start each day- be on time- no exceptions, be quiet for prayer and announcements. The rest of the time is all yours to utilize or waste as long as you remain seated and calm. My original purpose of developing this routine was to give myself those precious few extra minutes to prepare for the day, tweaking any plans or whatever I needed to do to make my school day successful. Another added benefit was that the students become accustomed to your presence like that load of unfolded laundry, broken cabinet handle, or fly on the wall that you end up just accepting as normal and carry on with your life. I’m constantly overhearing conversations and I’m sure the students aren’t aware of how attentive I am, despite all outward appearance.

This is amazingly boring 99% of the time. Usually it’s kids discussing homework deadlines or instructions, the latest sports news, upcoming events like dances, complaining about peers and teachers and all the vapidity that come with a life of low expectation, low consequences, and disposable income. Friday was different and got me thinking particularly about this Lenten season, fasting, and the benefits of self-discipline.

A senior girl was lamenting to her friends how hard it was to save money. She was obviously frustrated, but delightfully dramatic about it. “It’s soooo hard to keep any money in my bank account!” and other such comments. She was met with a few different responses- one boy sagely advised “That’s why you don’t look at your bank account. Only if you need to get gas or other necessities.” Sophomoric wisdom, to be sure, yet not completely without merit. Another girl retorted to this with something like “You have to look so you know how much you have to spend” implying clearly that all the money was there for your immediate pleasure and use in the moment without any concern for the future. The typical banter continued for a little while but the girl who started this continually came back to the frustration. To put it in my own terms, “I want to get ahead, but I don’t know how.”

This is where I chimed in. Every so often I do this and, when I do, it’s often surprising to the classroom. Attention becomes fixed on me in a hush. Sometimes I think it’s because they’re expecting some admonishment and want to witness it, but all I said this day was directed at that first girl, “I’ve got one word for you- BUDGET.” The boy striving for wisdom immediately replied “That’s true, yo!” and the original girl expressed the difficulty of budgeting. “It is hard. But here’s how you have to think about it. If you have $100, you have $60. No questions asked, no exceptions. Whatever the ratio, the saving part goes away and you don’t touch it.” The other more prodigal girl commented, “No. If you have $100 then you have $100 to spend.” I ignored her, and I hope her friend does too but this was the catalyst for my thoughts throughout the day.

You can find great treatises on the merits of fasting both physically and spiritually, and I’d love for anyone to share them in the comments, but what this brief interaction showed me is that the body and the soul are inseparable- the longing to save money and get ahead materially as I noticed in this girl seems to be a manifestation of spiritual longing. Unlike her friend, she felt a pull towards something greater than the immediate pleasure that her paycheck afforded her, and struggled with herself. What is this except a physical manifestation of a higher reality? If it were mere fancy, it would be as easily dismissed as her friend had done (I hope jokingly, but I’m highly skeptical about that). This wonderful young girl has been cheated from her deserved formation and is now completely unequipped to take on the tasks that come with maturity which, despite what the world tells us, is capable LONG before a human turns 18 years of age. (This always vexes me too because the excuse for immaturity is that the brain doesn’t finish developing until age 25 or something, yet we don’t take definitive action in that time to ACTUALLY HELP DEVELOP a worthwhile brain but instead expect it to somehow self-actualize by that magical number of orbits into something function to its full purpose…perhaps more on this thought at a later time.)

So let’s think about fasting. Fasting can be the willful “no” to many things but I think its highest efficacy is in this most basic of human needs. Mastering some kind of control and attitude over this desire is achievable for children as well as adults and I think we sell children short by avoiding introducing this and other difficult concepts. My two daughters, who are 12 and 9, both spoke to me Friday evening about this. The older one related to me how she had only eaten a yogurt, and a piece of pizza so far that day. I asked when she hadn’t eaten more and she replied “I didn’t even plan to, but I just kept going once I realized I hadn’t eaten more.” The younger girl related her food for the day too which surprised me in it’s sparsity as well. (Side note: I don’t make my kids fast. I tell them what I’m doing and why, I challenge them to give up something they would otherwise indulge in like TV, screen time, or a snack, or criticism of each other, but not meals at their ages.) But here I noticed the self discipline developing and being lived out that is lacking in some of my high school aged young adults.

The idea of budgeting only really makes sense if you’re capable of looking at what you have, and determining what you actually need. These mature skills MUST be started and instilled in our children at a much younger age that we might think. We should be encouraging kids to embrace challenge, to embrace difficulty, to embrace suffering (with our guidance of course). All of these things are coming eventually anyway, so why not introduce them willfully as preparation for real life? Fasting and self control are intimately connected but also point us towards a higher desire, a higher calling, a “feeding” of our soul. We are spirit and body and these two things must be united. By only indulging the corporal, our soul suffers until it cries out in anguish like the girl in my homeroom. Unfortunately at that point it’s still constricted by our body’s total dominance and focus on material. It longs for God and goodness, it longs for prayer and intimacy with its creator.

So what can we do? Start by skipping one meal on a Friday. If that’s too much, replace a meal with just a snack. Take something away. A colder shower, the sugar from your coffee, the preheating your car before your commute, but do it willfully. Tell yourself you will suffer this sacrifice in solidarity with those who don’t even have the option of these luxuries and get on with the work of your day. Offer an “Our Father” and focus on the line “Give us this day our daily bread.”

The body and soul are both good. One is not superior to the other. But the best (and truly ONLY) way promote the health and development of a fully realized human person requires us to learn as early (and as safely) as we can how to subjugate our base desires to our will. There is another girl I supervise in study hall who’s phone is glued to her hand. Throughout Lent, I have challenged kids like this by saying “I dare you to not touch your phone for one whole class period.” Her reply to me each time is, “Am I getting paid? Then nah.” This breaks my heart because she’s been failed. We are turning our children (and, if we’re honest, ourselves) into the intellectual and moral equivalent of our pets. My cat will nap in the sun all day as long as it’s fed. Even this would be better for us than resting in the LED glow of our devices of infinite diversion.

I find hope in the girl whose desire for more is erupting. May those of us who know and understand this seize the opportunity to witness to these young adults and to our children. May we act when given the chance to provide the obstinate with at least some pushback. Directly if possible, through example if not, but always with charity, compassion and understanding. They’re living in a shadowed world and, lest we completely blind them, need a slow introduction to light to see the truth.