Posted on by Coach Bash

I Am

I am. It’s a complete sentence and a complicated one.

I exist at many intersections of identity. Some of them clash at times.

These clashes make them no less valid.

I am complicated.

I am gentle and intense.

I am fire and water.

I am so many things.

I once hated this reality. I wanted to hide the parts of me I perceived to be undesirable.

With time and experience came a change.

I spend years wanting those around me to celebrate me.

I betrayed myself for the approval of others.

Now I love ME completely.

If someone asks me who my biggest fan is, I won’t look around for anyone else to point out because well….

I am.

Posted on by Coach Bash

2022 Fasting

As the year 2021 comes to a close, I am preparing for my annual start of the year season of fasting.

It started during my time in the C.O.G.I.C. denomination. We did a 21 day Daniel fast every year. It helped a lot of folks lose weight and get centered and/or closer to God.

Now that I’m more of a Christian universalist than anything else, I’ve decided to kick off 2022 with a season of fasting. I know that part of it will be a financial fast in which is engage in necessary spending only. I’m also considering a social media fast during which I abstain from posting on social media or from scrolling obsessively through social media. The jury is still out on that one but I do know that I need a time of fasting.

I used to think that fasting moved God but what it does, for me, is give me an opportunity to be more mindful about what I put into my body and what it is that I allow into my mind. This is something I find grounding because we live in a consumer culture where we are pressed on all sides to eat more, scroll more, & spend more. I wonder what this has done to our ability to produce meaningful things in our society. 🤔

I don’t have an answer in this moment but I’m searching. Hopefully the cutbacks I make this month and the fasting I do to start the new year will bring me closer to an answer.

Thanks for reading.

Bash