There has been an ongoing discussion at the Atsma dinner table for the last couple of days. Lent is almost over. What are we going to do? Our period of self-enforced vegetarianism is almost done. What have we learned, and where are we going to go with it?

We could go back to the same sort of diet that we were eating, but we kind of like what we've discovered. Vegetarian food can be fun. It's often cheaper than eating meat, and it expands our menu options. I can now make ratatouille and hummus and eggplant parmesan, and I'm going to try falafel next week. Plus it's been good for us. We've lost weight and body fat, and we have learned something about self-control. There were moments when it would have been a lot easier to just thaw out a chicken thigh, but with less than two weeks to go, we have been consistently vegetarian all season.

Conceivably, we could stay vegetarian, but, as Seth points out, grilling season is coming shortly, and he needs his meat. Now we have to decide how much meat we are going to put back in our diet. It would be really easy to fall back into our old habit of having meat four or five nights a week. With only three people, we can make one pot roast last half a month if we try. So what lines do we draw to protect our new found food experience, and how strictly do we draw them?

It's been brought home to me this Lenten season that I don't really know much about pure fasting, but as regards abstention or partial fasting, this is something I've encountered every time. After abstaining from something successfully, there comes a point when you have to prepare to let that thing back into your life. Most often we abstain from something that we feel we should cut back on, something that's a little unhealthy anyway like coffee orchocolate, YouTube or romance novels. So when Lent is over, and we've got all this spare time because we haven't been on YouTube for 40 days, we have to decide how much time we're going to give to YouTube now.

There can be a real temptation to dive headlong back into the thing we've given up. A friend of mine told me, "When Lent is over, I'm going to take a bath in chocolate." That sounds luxurious, if very sticky, but if you toss aside all your self-control, what have you gained by giving up the thing in the first place? The struggle of giving something up should leave a mark on your soul. You should have new priorities for your time, for your calories, and for your attention. Your coffee or your chocolate should fall into a whole new and much smaller category in your life. If it doesn't, then there wasn't much point in giving it up at all.

Our Lord once said that the pig goes back to her wallow and the dog to its vomit. (Now there's a couple of mental images that will curb the appetite.) I'm not trying to call our simple pleasures vomit, but I am suggesting that we all take active steps to hold on to the good habits that we've built in Lent. Setting limits is a good idea. Taking up better habits. I'm going to limit my Facebook surfing to two nights a week, whereas it used to be a nightly habit.

***

I'm still working on Scot McKnight's Fasting. Actually, I'm only four chapters into it. I remember the days when I could read an interesting book from cover to cover in a sitting, but alas, now I have a kid, and I cherish my sleep.

McKnight's general premise is that Western society has created a false dichotomy between body and soul, and so when we engage in spiritual activity, we often leave the body out of it. He says that this has led to an ignorance of fasting or a tendency to use it to get something from God when instead it should be a "natural, inevitable response to a sacred moment." In Biblical times, people fasted in response to something, not in order to receive something. God grants you what you ask for because you ask, not because you fast. It's a fine distinction, but it can mean the difference between spiritual and physical unity or spiritual manipulation and potential disappointment.

For example, the common understanding of fasting would say you fast to overcome a sin in your life. Scot McKnight would say the sin causes grief, disappointment, and frustration in your life, a yearning to be reunited with God where the sin stands in the way. These feelings drive you to fast and pray. God answers your prayers. The fasting is just part of the praying. So if you have a friend or a child who is rebelling against God, you fast because that makes you sad. If you have a burden for the lost in North Korea, then you fast because of the weight of their souls. If you have an important decision to make, then you fast because of your desire to do what God wants you to do. The pressure of the spirit and the Spirit on the body causes the body to say, "You know, I really don't feel like eating. Food would be a distraction from more important things."

That's as far as I've gotten, and I see his point. When was the last time any of us was tempted to rend our clothes and sit in sackcloth and ashes? I think we do a lot to stifle our physical displays of feeling in Western culture. It's a mark of social sophistication to show little of what you feel. I think there might be other reasons too. The Protestant work ethic, for instance, might share partial blame. We've made it a virtue to work hard and work consistently -- come life or death, the cows still have to be milked -- and it's hard to do a full day's work on an empty stomach.