I saw a man pursuing the horizon

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; 

Round and round they sped. 

I was disturbed at this; 

I accosted the man. 

"It is futile," I said, 

"You can never -- " 

"You lie," he cried, 

And ran on. 

- Stephen Crane

I am not exactly sure what I anticipated to find at the end of the horizon. The very phrase is an oxymoron. That I broke my fast on Friday, that I quelled my hunger, it was just an arbitrary point in time. I should have known I had not attained anything tangible. No panacea magically emerged from this fast, I have no answers for how we should aim to make change. As I savored my soup, quite greedily, in those very moments the final touches were being put on the budget proposal to slash $30+ billion dollars from the budget and save us from a government shut down. Friday, at sunset was just a moment to end the fast, and an opportunity to stare out at the still distant horizon. 

Yet something was building inside of me all of last week.  I kept waiting to have some magical conclusion, some path by which action could be taken. Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, they all passed by, and I was unable to uncover some undeniable truth. Thus I am writing today feeling a little bit lost, I wanted to say this is how we can carry all the lessons forward from the fast, how we can transform individualized action into collective action. 

We need to answer the question "What is our country?" The reason I thought individual fasting was helpful for me in answering this question, is because fasting pulled me away from my basic desires. Every moment was a reminder that I live a remarkably privileged life, that I live for core principles that are beyond self-interest and that I own nothing. Life is tenuous and the reason we form society is an acknowledgment that we are not self-reliant, and that we can achieve more together than apart. Halfway through last week  I made a pledge to try to fast more often (Islamic style sunrise to sunset, no food no water) so that I can remember these lessons and so that I may take the portion of money I would have spent on lunch and coffee ($10) and give it to charity.  

The prophet Mohammed (PBUH) used to fast each Monday and Thursday, not out of obligation, but as an extra good deed.   I am hoping that I can choose one of those days each week to fast, and that in a year this effort will make me conscious of God, and I will have raised $520 dollars for charity. This is money I currently spend on myself. I want to ask my friends to fast with me, once a week. Let us start informally, but perhaps we can formalize this effort into wellspring of strength for the cause of community, and a fountain of resources for the sake of the needy.

Again this is not a novel concept, nothing I ever write is. My dear friend Ben is in the Church of Latter Day Saints. Every month, on the first Sunday he goes 24 hours without food or water. As the head of his household he participates in the LDS fast-offering, where he donates the money that would have otherwise been spent to feed himself and his family to the church's charity which is setup specifically to help the less fortunate. Each month Ben donates probably in the neighborhood of $50 dollars (i'm guessing). As a single action, perhaps it the benefit is small, but collectively with the many devout members of the LDS church who participate in the fast-offering every month, the church raises significant money to help those in need. Ben not only gains from the benefits of fasting, and the goodness of giving charity, but he also participates in a program that builds an unrelenting view that the collective group is responsible to come together to strengthen other members, so they can become self-reliant. 

This fasting will not magically fix our country, it will not balance the budget,  nor improve our schools, nor cut the unemployment rate, nor solve the problem of the hungry for that matter. This is just a single attempt to remind ourselves that we are One community. Laugh if you want at my fruitless efforts, laugh at my fast that did nothing to stop the ax of budget cuts, tell me that it is futile to pursue the horizon. I know this is not the way of change, I know this may not even be the precursor to change, but it helped changed me, it helped set me on a straight path. So if you don't mind I'd like to go on chasing the horizon, because it seems like a pretty worthy pursuit to me.