In response to Matt’s challenge to come up with an idea for world peace, blog reader Michael Keck responds:

A step toward world peace, in my humble opinion, is encouraging people to study the subject of—and to actually partake in—fasting.  Fasting is not only beneficial for health reasons but spiritual as well.  Fasting brings about a peaceful state of mind.  We are what we eat.  Pollute the body with drugs and toxins, and we are the product of that.  For me personally, fasting helps clear my mind of all the things I think are important, and get to the bottom of what really is important.

Michael

Matt responds:

Dear Michael,

Fasting...  What an intriguing idea!  As a Roman Catholic, fasting was and is a strong basis of our manifestation to God.  Fasting from meat on Friday and fasting during Lent was a ritualization of abstaining from certain foods. But your idea of the normalization of fasting and the need for it, I believe, is important.

We see every day within our lives—as we get heavier and heavier from eating—that there are also also economic consequences to the individual, as we see the prevalence of weight loss systems, gym memberships, diet pills, and other legitimate or not-so-legitimate methods to lose weight.

Taking your basic thought about fasting has forced me to face the probable reality of my own self-indulgence.  Is there no world peace because we all self-indulge and are concerned only with ourselves?  Are we the center of the universe as an individual or a collective?  Is it really so that, as a culture, we have the attitude of, “I must get fat, and if other people must die, then that’s tough shit!”?

The realization of the sanctity of others, begins with the realization of the sanctity of the self.  If that can be brought about by the simple but difficult aspect of fasting, then I think you may be onto something very intriguing.  For something as simple as that to be that life-changing, is proof of how a small pebble can make a big ripple in the universe.  It’s a conscious thing we have to do, with the operative phrase being “we have to do.”  Thinking about doing it and doing it is the difference between night and day. 

So in the great meeting of whoever will take these different aspects of our dream for peace and look at them and meditate on them and in some cases put them into action, your idea is, I believe, very insightful.  Thank you for giving a more spiritual connotation to something that we take for granted and in most cases ignore.

Signed,(Hopefully, with your advice)
A Thinner Lamb