Fast Fast

The title of this piece is either a double entry (which should be caught by spell check), or the writer is finally showing signs of his age.  Or perhaps the meaning is exactly as it is written.  Fast fast could mean to hurry hurry, now now, or to run very fast; and I mean very fast.  Or, since fasting in the Biblical sense means to abstain from eating (mostly), the title could mean to not eat at all, nothing, nada: no food whatsoever.  Combining the two definitions would mean to hurry up and not eat.  Personally, I love to eat; so I wonder why I might desire to quickly move towards something that I don’t want to do.  In reality, I would drag myself in the slowest possible fashion towards a goal of eating less, let alone not eating at all.  So maybe there is another choice.

Fasting is about giving something up; food, alcohol, TV, broccoli (my favorite to give up); just about anything can be a subject of a fast; but, that is only a small portion of the purpose of fasting.  The real point of a fast is not what to give up; fasting is mostly about what we choose to add.  Fasting too often is connected with a negative, and it shouldn’t be, because fasting is much more a positive than a negative.  For many of us, fasting is a time of adding more of God into our daily routine.  Since God is the definition of what is good, then fasting can also be interpreted as doing good.  So, the title of this story could also be:

Hurry up and do some good.

By deliberately take time to purposefully add more good (kindness, love, peace, joy, friendship) to people near us, we can permanently change the course of someone for the better.  Help your neighbor with their yard work, tell your coworker they make a difference at work, compliment your spouse, give more to a charity, volunteer, or read a book to someone that you do not know at a retirement home.  Some of these actions come naturally and some take planning and scheduling; which is why we must be deliberate in doing good for others – it’s not always easy or convenient. 

We need to be in a hurry to do good, because the calamity, pain, and evil that seek to hurt all of us is non-stop: it never takes a break.  But good always wins over bad; light always exposes dark; kindness will ease sorrow; friendship will bring joy. If we are in a hurry to do something, shouldn’t it be for something good?

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