O Son of Spirit!

Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou was created.

~ Baha’u'llah, The Hidden Words

The Fast officially ended at sunset this evening, and boy oh boy was it a learning process. Far more than last year, and I was far less successful with it this year compared with last year.

I am incredibly foolish at times. Embarrassingly, frighteningly, and utterly foolish. I had this strange month, March, one where absolutely nothing seemed to go right.

Once you get things “all figured out,” it’s supposed to be smooth sailing, right?

Spring Break was last week, and, without a doubt, it was the most disastrous week I’ve had in a long, long time. It was bad-bad, like half-a-gallon-of-blue-bell-ice-cream in 2 days bad. A feat, I might add, that I have NEVER accomplished in all of my days of crazy eating before last week.

Last week, the one that fell after this wonderful, transformative, oh-my-God moment that supposedly changed everything.

It wasn’t bad enough that I did that, though. I broke the Fast. Over and over and in as many different ways as I could possibly count, I broke the Fast. And the level of guilt that I felt over it was incredible, to the point of my wondering why I was doing it in the first place.

Two days went by, and I realized I was eating crap food. Crap, crap food. Four, and I realized that I hadn’t done my morning routine of meditation and exercise in at least three days.

Guilt is such a strange, strange thing.

I have been reading a lot, though, and I realized that I have unceremoniously and unconsciously looking for something to “disprove” the Baha’i Faith. Because one “wrong” word, one wrong fundamental difference, and I could say “Aha!” and walk away from the Baha’i Faith. It was 16 months ago that I had first heard of it, from a person who had asked me what I believed about God.

I stuttered and stammered because, while I had all of these “universal” spiritual ideas, I hadn’t really fleshed them out. And as I talked, and then he explained, I instantly recognized huge points of commonality, and I found myself thinking, “Hmm. You mean other people feel this way, too?”

It was eye-opening for me, and it set me on a path of reading and researching. But here it is the second year of the Fast, one in which, by all outward appearances, I abysmally failed, and I know what I’m doing. (At least for this moment, that is, as always, subject to change at any moment), and I know where I’m headed.

The way I see it, committing to a faith is very much like committing to a marriage. While I’ve explored in the past, I think that to declare your specific path is to show what you’re striving for by means of a commitment.

When I worked Step 3 in January, and willingly and consciously gave my life and my will over to God, I meant it, and I realized that it wasn’t just about food, but I really didn’t understand the scope of what I was doing.

Of course, I’m not sure that I do even at this point, but I’m okay with that.

This is incredibly disjointed, since I’ve been trying to write it over a period of several days, but now I’m going to wind it up.

I do not have Baha’i leanings. I am not “intellectually curious” about Baha’i studies.

I am Baha’i.

And tomorrow is the New Year. And I have my work cut out for me.

Because of my hypothyroidism, I am chronically dehydrated. My ultimate health goal is that, by next year’s Fast, to be in a condition which will allow me to fully and wholly observe it as it was commanded. Weight apparently affects thyroid function, and thyroid function affects, well, just about everything.

I don’t know if it’s directly connected. It’s just sort of a conglomeration of different things I’ve been told my doctors.

I don’t know if it’s even possible. I don’t know what lies between this year and next.

I just know that it’s my goal, and absolutely contingent upon commitment.

I’m sort of a mess today.

Scratch that, I’m definitely a mess today.

Spring Break is here, and I slept in again. I woke up, ate breakfast, and went back to bed, content that I’d observe the Fast again.

Right.

Last year it was “neat” and “nifty” and “challenging.” This year it is is “hard” and “grrr” and “bringing garbage to the surface.”

Which is not to say that it is still not beautiful. I can tell some major stuff is going on, which makes it absolutely necessary.

It just doesn’t make the Fast as fun as it was last year.

I’m not overly emotional or anything, I simply can NOT get moving. Waking up early, (going to bed early the night before is where I get messed up at), and beginning the day the “proper way” makes such a huge difference. Who’d have thought that what was normal behavior for just a couple of months ago (minus a school day), would be “such a mess” today.

My, how the times have changed.

Yesterday, I could excuse it. It was, after all, National Nap Day. I still managed to do what I needed to do.

But today, it’s almost 2 pm and I’m sitting here, stagnant, wondering just why I can’t get my day started.

I re-discovered an old haunt, one which I registered for and even posted a couple of times to, but sort of dropped off the map right around the time I started smoking again. (Hmmm. Oh, what a coincidence!)

It’s 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet. A very, very cool place. I’ve actually linked this blog in my sig there, which means that people I don’t know will see me as I am now, and that prospect scares the ever living crap out of me.

Which is exactly why I had to do it, I suppose.

And of course, that makes me want to walk less than it did yesterday. Which, again, is exactly why I need to do it.

Because, unlike last year, I am committed. And a lot of this “garbage” coming up revolves around fear. Actually, all of it does.

And, unfortunately, keeping commitments wholly is irrelevant of being afraid of them or not.

Which is why I have to do it.

We have commanded you to pray and fast from the beginning of maturity; this is ordained by God, your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers. He hath exempted from this those who are weak from illness or age, as a bounty from His Presence, and He is the Forgiving, the Generous.

Baha’u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas

It’s that time of the month again! This time, I’ve discovered 7.6 lbs gone this month, bringing my total gone to 10.2 lbs.

Thank God. Literally.

And something I just said two days ago: “And my second day into this particular commitment is way too early to go and break it.”

It wasn’t about the Fast, but it could have been.

Monday, I had a horrible day. My energy crashed about 3 pm, and I couldn’t get it back. I napped. I broke the Fast for coffee (very much trying to stay away from food for it), and I finally ended up eating, but nothing helped.

The next morning, I’m bright and shiny and happy, happy, happy to be eating breakfast before sunrise.

But something happened, and I broke it again. And again, and, if I recall correctly, once more again.

Oh, God and His mysterious ways again.

I was heart-sick from the thought of having broken the Fast. I was sad, I was angry, I was a lot of things.

I was very, very distraught.

When I had broken it “accidentally” last year, I found myself thinking, “Ok, so it happened. I have to pay attention to that so it doesn’t happen again.”

I was disappointed, but I wasn’t heart-broken.

When I felt like I needed to end it early because I *was* feeling continually physically sick, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t heart-broken.

On Monday and Tuesday I was heartbroken. In fact, this morning, I woke up and I was still heart-broken about it.

Fortunately for me, I had met someone who, either intentionally or unintentionally, put everything into perspective for me. He asked me one simple question. “Do you consider yourself Baha’i?”

My standard answer is “No. I’m an interested observer. I have Baha’i leanings. I’m < whatever it was I called myself when I felt I was called to observe the Fast last year >. But, no, I’m not a Baha’i.”

This morning, I was trying to figure out why there was such a huge difference between last year and this year. I mean, I observed it, and I broke it. But I never felt that I had failed it because, as I said last year, “Something doesn’t have to be 100% successful to be 100% successful.”

I learned a LOT. I learned a lot during that period that had lasting spiritual and emotional impact on me. So how could it have been a failure?

It wasn’t, and it hit me that it wasn’t, because I didn’t have a personal stake in it. While I enjoyed very, very much participating in it, it wasn’t obligatory for me. It was an exercise, an experiment.

Because I wasn’t Baha’i.

So I struggled with it and struggled with it and struggled with it. I’m still not Baha’i. So it’s still not obligatory for me.

Only the overwhelming feeling of failure and sadness made me realize that there is a part of me for which the Fast IS obligatory. Otherwise, it would have been just another experiment that I wasn’t able to complete.

And that is what stopped me. I had been working with a specific obligatory prayer since January since I was dealing with the notion of powerlessness, and I used it because I was drawn to it with the First Step. I didn’t use it because it was obligatory.

But something happened when the obligatory prayer met the obligatory Fast, I think. Because of my weekend sleep, Monday was the first day I recited it in direct conjunction with preparation for a foodless day.

And as much as I want to say “I’m moving towards the Baha’i Faith (thereby ensuring a lack of arrival)” or whatever, but the truth is that I’ve been drawn to the Faith for a while now, over a year.

It started off as curiosity. Then I realized how much it resonated with what I believed. And, strangely enough, it was the the Baha’i Faith that pushed me into attending a Unity church. And while I was getting my Unity groove on, and doing some pretty hard-core healing in the mean time (although, it’s only in retrospect that I recognize that), the Baha’i pull grew stronger and stronger.

In January, when I worked the Third Step and turned my life and my will over to God, I specifically asked God for his aid in making the things that were good for me more and more attractive and the things that weren’t less and less so. I did so with the intention of food, and He decided (which is His right, since He knows so much better than I do!) that it wasn’t limited to food.

It has touched so many different areas of my life, that I’ve barely been able to keep up. Actually, I haven’t been able to keep up.

But the Baha’i Faith is one of them. Whereas I had been “thinking about one day” looking into finding a local study group, I actually did start looking in January. (And it’s only now, that I’m writing, that I’m really starting to put all of this together). While that proved to be disappointing, I did discover some other resources. I started looking, at any rate, rather than merely procrastinating.

Other little things, too, now that I think about it. I had been asked by a friend if I were going to be doing that “Fasting thing” again, and I was surprised, because there was never any doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be doing it. But looking back, it was a valid question.

I’ve been impulsive almost all of my life. I’ve jumped in without proper examination and ended up breaking commitments.

And that’s something important to me, this newly found power of commitment, even if it wasn’t manifesting in the Fast the past couple of days. I’ve managed it through school. I’ve managed it through a church class–through several church classes, actually. I always thought I’ve been bad at commitment, but I’m learning that it isn’t always true.

And I think it’s ironic, in the way that so much of my life is so ironic, that it took me breaking one commitment to realize that I’ve been trying to make another one all along.

Today marked the beginning of the Baha’i Fast, a spiritual practice which I first encountered last year.

I don’t have any of my numbers handy — my starting weight and things like that, but since I’m such a fan of important dates, I thought this would be a perfect day to begin this blog.

Even if there’s only 20 minutes left in the day.

I really didn’t accomplish much of anything today. I worked, slept, and spent some time with some out-of-town friends.

I also left my medicine at work this morning. That was sort of surprising, and I wasn’t going to bother with it (conceivably unwise, but factual nonetheless) until I remembered that my vitamins were in it, too.

I’ve been making monthly health goals — specific practices which I adopt each month in order to completely create a new healthy lifestyle one or two steps at a time. This month it’s drinking 6 cups of water a day and taking vitamins.

They’re not so much goals as they are commitments. Which is why I found myself, at approximately 10 tonight, driving to work to get my medicine bag. Not because it had medicine in it, but because it had my vitamins in it.

And my second day into this particular commitment is way too early to go and break it.