Fast cars, fast fashion, fast(ing from) food.
• Five Minute Friday :: Fast Linkup
Fast: so many meanings! Moving speedily, finishing in warp time, refraining from a certain food or drink–sometimes a particular attitude or activity. You can observe a time of fasting from food for spiritual discernment or to pray for a treasured intention. Some traditions emphasize fasting from a meal or meals and then donating the money you save to a favored cause. Maybe especially(?) Reformed Christians enjoy the feeling of no Sunday breakfast so the sacrament breaks their fast.
Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke? … Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry? …Then your light will break forth like the dawn; your righteousness will go before you. Isaiah 58:6-8
In the spirit of Amos 5 earlier on, via Isaiah 58 God disses perfunctory religious ceremonies and fasts engaged in mostly for show—in fact, done so God just might notice! And then explains what to do, how to act if you want God to notice you and respond. This passage also counsels us to keep Sabbath, to trust life and sustenance as gift rather than as laborious toil.
We've seen sad evidence of some fast cars being dangerous, harmful, and hurtful. Producing fast fashion uses too many finite resources to almost no avail, and too much landfill afterwards, even though it keeps people employed to some extent. Quality, nutrition, flavor, and healthiness of fast food slowly has been improving. But fasting a while from food? Either contributing what you save to a food charity or better yet, doing doubles by inviting a friend, acquaintance, or safe stranger to lunch with you so you feed them and fellowship them, too.