“Is life not more than Netflix and chill?” concerns the variety of things we need to fuel our bodies, souls, and spirits and gives a spiritual meaning to the term “well-balanced diet.” Building on our last installment, “Desire brought me home,” I discuss how feeding our bodies and even our passions is not enough. To be fully alive, we must also feed our spirits.
Anchor
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” — Matthew 6:25-26
Sea
I've been thinking a lot about food recently—no surprise. I am 24 days into a yearly fast. 23,000 followers of Jesus are engaged in SEEK 2025, Alfred Street Baptist Church's undertaking of the ancient practice of fasting. During SEEK, we allow hunger and entertainment deprivation to invigorate our practice of relying upon God. Think of it like a cold plunge—painful at the moment, exhilarating afterward.
This 40-day fast began with cutting out alcohol, chocolate, sweets, caffeine, and fried foods. By now, we're only eating vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains in what's known as a Daniel Fast. In week 6, we will be down to clear liquids only.
To prepare, I had to reimagine my pantry totally. I filled my grocery cart with peppers, potatoes, brussels, and alfalfa sprouts, walnuts, mangoes, and apples, hummus, tahini, and pasta made from edamame, bananas, spinach, mushrooms, and broccoli. Pure fruit juices with no added sugars, dairy-free unsweetened Greek yogurt, and plant-based breakfast sausage.
As I was shopping, it became fun. I was creatively thinking about my meal choices. I couldn't just rely on the same old stuff anymore. I had to experiment and play. Things that had never gone into my basket made it in, and items I reluctantly purchased during previous fasts, like mushrooms, cauliflower pizza, and mangoes, have become regular staples throughout the year.
All this thinking about what to eat made me ponder Jesus' rhetorical question, "Is not life more than food?"
So much of our lives orbit around food: shopping for it, preparing it, ordering it on Uber Eats. We get upset and binge on a plate of Toll House cookies. We obsess about calories and deprive our bodies to make them behave. In Atlanta, entertainment has condensed around eating and drinking. But when we fast, we remember that life is indeed more than food. When hunger pains kick in, we turn to the Word of God. At the end of a stressful day, we spend time talking to God rather than turning to alcohol or my mom's favorite, ice cream. Yet, there is still something more implied by Jesus' statement.
Jesus acknowledges that people are complex systems. We have a body, yes. But life consists of more than meeting our physical needs. We also have a soul and spirit. So, what are you feeding them?
I discussed this in the last newsletter, "Desire brought me home." We can't keep starving our souls (our personalities) of the particular things they need to survive and call it holy. Fasts are meant to be temporary for a reason.
The body needs a complex assortment of proteins, carbs, and fats. Similarly, the soul needs a diverse diet to grow and develop, one that includes passions and challenges, stimulation and rest, relationships and solitude.
We can't all be drawn to sitting on our couches and scrolling on Instagram 24/7. Something is short-circuiting our deeper desires with superficial ones that stimulate but rarely inspire. I have to keep telling myself that going on a binge is not the same as sitting down to a feast.
What would be a feast for your soul?
My soul, like yours, craves a wide array of experiences. It revels in the performing arts, dancing, group sings, poetry, and books on theology and philosophy. It finds joy in dramatic fashion and Islamic architecture. It savors early morning rituals and rooibos chai with steamed oat milk. But it also needs moments of quiet and solitude, the challenge of completing mundane tasks. It doesn’t like it, but it needs confrontation: to acknowledge difficult emotions like anger and to resolve disappointments.
It takes effort to keep our souls healthy, but it's an effort that gives back more than it takes, like taking a hot shower after a long day. The energy we expend when we provide our minds and hearts with nutritious meals can invigorate us. After all, is not the soul more than Netflix and chill?
Okay, we've tackled the body and the soul. Now comes the spirit. We often treat the soul and spirit interchangeably, but I don't think they are. Your spirit is the part of you that is connected to the Source of Life. It is transcendent. It is not only from God; it is of God.
As a spiritual being, spirit-you requires spiritual food, and that can only come from a spiritual source. Fortunately for us, God has already given us this food: his Holy Word. Just as God fed the wandering children of Israel with heavenly manna, God doesn't expect us to go and get spiritual nourishment on our own. He knows we can’t. Instead God gives us the Scriptures for food in order to strengthen our spirit.
But man, are we like the Israelites, though! They pouted in the wilderness that this miracle manna wasn't enough. We, too, whine and complain that the word of God isn't enough to sustain us (often without even trying it!) We want bread, we want quail, we want meat!
Jesus viewed things differently. After 40 days without food, during which He craved bread and meat, Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. Jesus replied by putting God’s Word, Deuteronomy 8:3, into his starving mouth: "Man shall not live on bread alone… [but by every word that comes from the mouth of God]." For Him, God's word was more vital than food.
When His disciples worried about Him, encouraging Him to eat something after their long journey, Jesus responded to them in John 4:32-34, saying, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about…My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."
In the wilderness, Jesus chewed on God's word when he had nothing else. And during his ministry, obedience to the will of God was His exercise. Jesus knows we need both (meditation and obedience) to form healthy spirits.
We grow strong physically by consuming essential nutrients and working out. Similarly, we grow spiritually by devouring God's word and letting it fuel our lives. God's words empower us as we grow through challenges and sustain us in our daily activities.
This is spiritual strength, and it comes from spiritual nourishment. (And when followers of Jesus take communion, we are actually saying that as the embodied word of God, Jesus' physical life—His body and His blood—is our spiritual food. This is a mysterious and mystical teaching but one we live out every time we dip the bread in the cup.)
Jesus experienced such oneness with the Father that His Spirit sustained His body for a time without the aid of food. The disciplines of fasting and praying God's word allow us to experience a shadow of this oneness.
Your first step might not be fasting. It might be considering the reality that you are you three times over: you-body, you-soul, and you-spirit.
Which you do you want to spend a little more intentional time with? Which part of you do you need to nourish? Invite yourself to dinner, and when you do, consider an expanded sense of the word diet. Prepare yourself an extravagant smorgasbord full of things you love and things you've never tried before, calorie-dense nutrients and physical exertion, passions that delight, and activities that challenge. Maybe even try adding in some of God's word. Ruminate on it. Then, try exercising it in your life in a new way. I guarantee something will fill you. Bon appetite.
Verily,
Alysia
Sail
During my fast, I recently wrote a poem about my dinner: a roasted veggie tray. The colors were so beautiful that it deserved a short celebration. Written in the ethic and style of Lucille Clifton.
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