Fasters Anonymous

The First Week of Lent … I ended up attending my first meeting of Fasters Anonymous. It’s a 12-step group that meets in the basement of a local Catholic church. This year, since Orthodox Easter is way later than the Catholics – and everybody else, for that matter – the group had already been meeting for 5 weeks. But, given my circumstances, I had to go …

My sponsor told me, on the way there, that some of the folks at the meeting would be Roman Catholic or Episcopalian – but, now that Lent had arrived for the Orthodox, the majority of the participants would be, like me, Orthodox struggling with First Week.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I understood what he meant …

There were several cars with bumper stickers saying things like:

The Episcopal Church Welcomes You

Hate is not a family value … and stuff

Then there was:

Abortion stops a beating heart

Pray the Rosary daily

and

Mary is my co-pilot

And then I saw them … our people … bumper stickers sporting things like:

Honk 40 times if you’re Orthodox

My Church is Older than Your Church

and, of course:

Orthodoxy: Christianity, just harder

Anyway …

There were probably 50 people sitting round in a circle; I recognized a few. We began with a welcome from the leader … then, this group sang a Fasting Song to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island theme song …

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.