Fasting, Pacifiers, and the Voices in Your Head

While I came late to the seasons of the Church calendar, still I’ve followed their rhythm for over 35 years. Especially as a minister, preacher, and worship leader, I’m challenged year after year to find new ways to think about Advent . . . or to envision Lent . . . or to celebrate Resurrection. There are only so many ways to twist the prism, only so many times I can lean into my reliable, stand-by descriptions of the seasons.

So I’ve been enlivened in recent days by Barbara Brown Taylor’s short essay on Lenten disciplines. I’ve followed her writing and preaching for several years. She is compelling and stretching, writing with honesty about the spiritual journey by offering fresh images for envisioning life connected deeply to God. I’ve read a number of her books . . . both Leaving Church and An Altar in the World have impacted me in huge ways. But for some reason, I had missed her essay on Lent until recently. Today, she is my teacher.

She writes with Luke 4:1-13 in the background, the account of Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days before being tempted. Then she likens Lenten practices to being left in the wilderness by yourself for 24 hours, a common practice among men’s rite-of-passage groups and some wilderness adventure expeditions. The aim in that kind of boundary experience is to place you at the edges of what you know, to push you to see your own life differently, and to come to some deeper sense of what is beneath all the machinations and projections that are part of our daily life.

The Lenten name we would give to this kind of stripped-down experience is fasting. As Brown Taylor says,

That is when you find out who you are. That is when you find out what you really miss and what you really fear. Some people dream about their favorite food. Some long for a safe room with a door to lock and others just wish they had a pillow; but they all find out what their pacifiers are – the habits, substances, or surroundings they use to comfort themselves, to block out the pain and fear that are normal parts of being human.


I’ve long recognized that each of us have personalized patterns for dealing with life when we feel things are out of control. We are aware that when Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, we are especially vulnerable. Usually in those states, we’ll reach for something that brings comfort – that’s why we call some foods “comfort foods” – in order to escape the more difficult realities that rise up from within us. We’ll do most anything to not face our own selves.

I have my default habits, behaviors, and addictions, just as you do. Brown Taylor says she is convinced that 99% of us are addicted to something. I think the percentage is even higher . . . taking the form of eating, drinking, shopping, blaming, substances, entertainment, busyness.

Brown Taylor calls these things pacifiers. I think it’s a marvelous image.

That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.


When you are dropped by the adventure group into the middle of the wilderness, you have left all these pacifiers behind. No more mac and cheese to soothe your anxiety . . . no glass of wine after work to take off the edge . . . no comfortable bed for an escaping nap . . . no strip-center down the street to look for the blouse that would take away your blues . . . no movie theater in which to lose your life in someone else’s story. It’s just you in that place, stripped down and vulnerable, the real self hungry-angry-lonely-tired.

This is Lent, forty days of this stripping down, forty days of saying “No!” to that one thing which pretends to make everything better . . . but which actually just pushes all the ugly inner stuff beneath the surface yet again.

Nothing is too small to give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For forty days, simply pay attention to how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens when it happens. What is going on when you start craving a Mars bar? Are you hungry? Well, what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see what you find out.


There is nothing magical about Lenten practices. Giving up chocolate for Lent is a worthwhile gesture for several reasons, but a.) if chocolate is not a pacifier for you, and b.) if you are not reflective about what it feels like to resist reaching for the candy bar when you feel stressed, then you might as well spend your time in some other productive pursuits for Lent.

On the other hand, if chocolate (or whatever happens to be your addiction of choice) IS your pacifier, and if you ARE reflective about what it feels like to go without that thing, then asking yourself the questions Barbara Brown Taylor suggests above is a good place to begin.

Of course, our inner voices chatter away, counseling moderation, urging us to back off such asceticism, reminding us of our commitment to never look as if we’re holier-than-thou. This is how she ends her Lenten essay.

Chances are you will hear a voice in your head that keeps warning you what will happen if you give up your pacifier. “You’ll starve. You’ll go nuts. You won’t be you anymore.” If that does not work, the voice will move to level two: “That’s not a pacifier. That’s a power tool. Can’t you tell the difference?” If you do not fall for that one, there is always level three: “If God really loves you, you can do whatever you want. Why waste your time on this dumb exercise?”

If you do not know who that voice belongs to, read Luke’s story again. Then tell the devil to get lost and decide what you will do for Lent. Better yet, decide whose you will be. Worship the Lord your God and serve no one else. Expect great things, from God and from yourself. Believe that everything is possible. Why should any of us settle for less?

[All quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor, “Lenten Discipline,” Home by Another Way (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley Publications, 1999), pp. 65-68.]