A fast unknown to the Holy Fathers
The Dormition Fast in the age of the Internet: how to arrange an “informational diet” for the mind – and why silence today is more precious than news.
We fast a great deal – between 174 and 212 days a year. Most of the year is fasting time. The Savior, speaking about demonic possession, said: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Our own susceptibility to irritation, anger, despondency, and other passions is a form of possession too. We pray every single day, we fast nearly two-thirds of the year – and yet, the demonic reflex of the soul still does not leave us. Something in our fasting and prayer is clearly amiss.
The age in which we live is utterly unlike that of the Holy Fathers, whose counsels have come down to us.
They never knew the temptations that confront us. From the dawn of Christianity until very recent days, there was never such an overabundance of information. There was no Internet, no ceaseless flood of news, videos, and entertainment. The human mind today is overloaded; events rush past with dizzying speed. Our life has become a ride on extreme roller coasters, with scarcely a moment to stop – not only to be alone with God, but even to be alone with ourselves for a few minutes.
A fast for the mind
Two weeks is not a long time. What if, for these fourteen days, we tried to make our minds fast? To close every gate of information, and allow the world to be as it is. When we read the news, we feel an illusion of control – but it is only an illusion. Our awareness of events does not affect their outcome. Yet our mind fears not knowing. This fear is hard to overcome, but we must try. In two weeks, nothing will happen that could truly take us unawares. Anything urgent or vital we will surely learn of – there is no need to worry about that.
The experience of thoughtlessness will be far more useful. Especially if we add silence to it.
God dwells in the silence we cannot hear for the whistling rush of information streaming into our souls.
Later we can compare two modes of life:
- How does the soul feel when it is accustomed to living in the external world, spending six or more hours a day online?
- And what does a person feel who has stepped away from the whirl, looked around, and found himself – and himself in God – in stillness?
The virtual world has become a whirlpool drawing ever deeper our consciousness and time. Our forebears had no such bottomless pit called the Internet, into which the mind could thrust its head at any moment. To fast with the mind, to let it hold as few thoughts as possible – this is a most useful exercise.
Silence leads to God
The witness of the desert fathers is clear: when the mind falls silent and thoughts cease to trouble us, the heart leads us to God. We spend our whole life listening to and reading words – but it is silence that leads to God. The Lord responds with grace only in the stillness of the mind and heart. He gave us faith so that we might make our soul into a paradise; but busyness and fuss have turned it into an Eastern bazaar.
God speaks to man without words. To hear Him, we must cut off our own words, end the endless inner monologues.
The Lord speaks in the silence of our heart – but the world shouts its noise straight into the ears of our mind.
Hundreds of thoughts dissolve in the quiet into five words of the Jesus Prayer. In the depths of the human heart lies such silence that even a single thought can sound like a clap of thunder. In that silence, there is no “I” and no “other” – only Christ, who is the fullness filling all in all.
Leaving all for God
God created all things for us – and we must learn to leave all things for God. Let us try to do so for these two weeks of the fast. Let us not be like a soap bubble that, just before bursting in its little puddle, managed to see so many “interesting” things. The world will drain from those who love it every last drop. The gates to hell are entered through despair; the gates to the Kingdom of God – through hope and peace.
The Dormition Fast we dedicate to the Mother of God. She is for us like a cool spring in the desert of life.
She is our joy and our hope. To come to Christ, we must hold fast to Her hand. May the Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos be for us that joy which no one can take away.
