BREAKFAST . . .

There are lots of good things about short-term fasting.

It focuses me, leads -- and sometimes, drives -- me to prayer
It makes me think about things other than myself -- people who are far hungrier than I am, people who are actually suffering.
It makes me think about God.
It makes me think about every blessing He gives me. Namely food.
It makes me realize that there is so much in my life that I don't need to live.
It makes me appreciate the air I breathe, the song I sing, the clothes I wear, the water that I drink.
It makes me read the Bible during the time I would normally be eating.
It makes me pay attention to people during mealtime, instead of paying attention to the meal.
It makes me really thankful that at the end of the fast, there will always be food to eat and my body will always be nourished.

People make a big deal about breaking fast -- I know folks who prepare incredible meals that just need to be heated up and eaten. I know other folks who drive straight to the nearest Wendy's or McDonald's and feel that they have never eaten a better burger in their entire lives. I know others who discover that they just aren't hungry, and so they go another few hours until they are.

Me, I'm pretty random. I just go where the break-fast flow takes me. Today, it was:

-- noodles and veggies in peanut sauce
-- Indian-style tofu cubes
-- spicy-tuna and cucumber roll in brown rice
-- small McDonald's french fries
-- small McDonald's vanilla shake

It was almost as delicious and satisfying as my day was.

***

SATURDAY . . .

I was talking to a friend about the day after Good Friday but before Easter Sunday: this random Saturday that has apparently no other distinction than being the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We were wondering what the heck went down, back in the day, when Jesus had been taken down from the cross and buried, but had yet to be resurrected.

How many really knew the resurrection was coming? Certainly even Christ's most faithful disciples at the time only had a very foggy idea of what He was talking about, and it's hard to imagine them really expecting Jesus to be raised from the dead, the heavy tombstone rolled away from the opening and the burial cloths laying unraveled inside. Maybe the women in Jesus's life knew? His mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, other women followers ... throughout the Scriptures, they seem to have had an uncanny insight into Jesus and who He was. Maybe they understood? But even so ... who really would have expected what happened, that which He had been saying all along? If that were me back then, watching from a far hill, my Good Teacher be killed on a cross, would I have known what to expect three days later? Would I have believed the impossible, and would I have waited for it? How would I have spent my Saturday?

As Jews, they all probably observed the Sabbath. Sat shiva, perhaps -- or is that a modern development? Surely, they mourned. Some, I'm sure, wondered where their King went -- He whom they expected to bring revolution against and freedom from Caesar. Maybe they spent the day cursing Him for not having saved Himself, for not having saved them. Or maybe, in whatever state of confusion and life-must-go-on attitude, they just ... moved on.

It's interesting to me that there is no account in the Scriptures, as far as I can tell, of what happened on that middle day. Where did everyone go? What did they do? What did they do with the torn temple curtain? The disciples apparently fled, but to where? Who was afraid, who was happy, who didn't care a whit? How did Pontius Pilate feel? What happened to his wife, who all the previous day had been having just a baaaad feeling about things?

If I were to write a fictionalized account, a novel, let's say, about Saturday, The Middle Saturday, what would I say? (Well, there's the title now. It's mine, so don't take it.) What would I, could I, assume? How much would I have to completely create from thin air? Is there anything, nothing, I can know about the Middle Saturday?

I know this much. It leads up to Sunday, Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. And now, knowing what I do, I would freely tell the tale of believers who waited with baited breath ... who knew that even on the heels of horrible and incredible suffering and unfairness, great victory and downright, foot-stomping joy would come ... who were just wriggly with anticipation and excitement for the Middle Saturday to pass so that Sunday would arrive, and with it a new birth, life and salvation.