Lord, let me make a fast,
from all those things that have filled my belly for so long.
Bloated from excesses, slowed and dulled and numbed in spirit.
Lord, let me make a fast
from those poisons I have called nourishment,
from the poverty I have called wealth,
from that shallowness I have called depth;
from any meagerness I have called abundance.
I am ready to go out with You
to be emptied in whatever desert will be mine.
Lord let me make a fast.
May I fast from speed.
May I drive more slowly.
May I remove these shoes that help me walk quickly,
and with great purpose—
and may my feet contact your earth,
slowly and with great care,
with gentleness and with much respect.
May I walk as your calm presence in this world.
May my voice be lower,slower.
May it be a voice more understood
by those whose ears are failing;
a safer voice that does not make the listener ask again,
a voice that comforts in its tones.
May I be your slow and soothing,
still small voice.
May there be breeze where I have passed,
not cyclone, not chaos,
not whirlwind sense of things of great import,
but only the echoing whisper of where you have walked.
Lord, may I fast from speed.
May I fast from busyness.
May I learn to bless my simple being,
and may I come to know that being as the fertile soil
that roots and grounds my doing.
May my days be less full,less likely to implode,
collapsing in on themselves,
a black hole dense with all those tasks,
commitments,
things I simply cannot cease to do,
for fear of the world—indeed,
the universe—
will cease along with them.
Instead, may there be holes and gaps,
may there be light,
great periods of wicked, wasteful idleness,
that Devil’s workshop transformed as, slowly,
I come to trust that You are there in the quiet,
in the calm, in the vacuum of nothing
planned to do but be alive,
that being quite enough.
Lord,may I fast from busyness.
Lord, may I fast from fear.
May I come out from my hiding.
May I know sun and snow, wind and rain,
feel heat and cold as armor drops to only such protection
as I need,
no less, but most assuredly no more.
May I befriend the shadow.
May I coax it out of hiding,
remove its ban of excommunication,
bring it back from exile.
May I embrace that darker side
that I have banished for so long,
beaten down, denied, and may I own it fully.
May I give shadow energy a voice,
and come to know that healing lies in unity,
polarities in tension, but never in denial.
Lord, may I fast from fear.
May fasting time be sacrament,
outward sign, inward Grace;
empty belly,
an open space wherein You might dwell
replacing illusion of fullness.
Lord let me make a fast.
Gloria Carpeneto
