February 19, 2009
by Emily Enders Odom

LOUISVILLE – Tricia Fischer is no stranger to the global marketplace. As a supervisor for the United Parcel Service with responsibility for its international gateways, she thinks and acts globally every day.

Thus already more attuned than most to the world's intimately interconnected nature, Fischer turned both a personal and an advocate's eye to world hunger issues, questioning how her own actions involving food were affecting her neighbors, locally and globally.

Fischer, who was raised as a Baptist and later joined the United Methodist Church, attends Covenant Community Church, a new church development of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. She was drawn to the church's "in, out, and with" approach, in which small groups help members to appreciate their identity, practices, lifestyle, and mission around a variety of shared concerns and issues across the wider community.

Joining a group called "Just Food and Faith" a year ago helped Fischer to see and to address more clearly – within the context of her church community – how food impacts society. The group itself took shape partly because several church members had participated in the seven-week Just Eating? Practicing Our Faith at the Table curriculum series, jointly produced by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Church World Service and Advocate Healthcare, a few years earlier.

"One of the critical things the group helped me to identify was the nature of human desire," she said. "Just because so many of us can have what we want doesn't mean that we should have it. Having what we want isn't necessarily what's best for the world."

For Fischer, that understanding translated into some immediate lifestyle changes, including volunteering at a community garden, moving from vegetarian to vegan practices, eating and buying food locally, and participating in the monthly, churchwide fast, initiated last fall by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as directed by the 218th General Assembly.

"In the fall, Andrew Kang Bartlett came to talk to us," Fischer recalled, referring to the associate for National Hunger Concerns in the Presbyterian Hunger Program. "We discussed joining the fast as a great way to stand with the PC(USA) and those working with world hunger issues in solidarity with those who are suffering from hunger." Additionally, the church's organizing pastor, the Rev. Jud Hendrix, allows space and time for intentional communities, like Fischer's group, to share what they are working on through an open pulpit model. Inspired by the testimony of a person who had done a weeklong fast, Fischer was ready to accept the challenge.

As she began the monthly fasts, Fischer immediately discovered that the practice of fasting was compatible with her church's and her own commitment to follow the way of Jesus Christ and to live out God's call through inward, outward, and communal journeys. "Fasting fit all three of those things," she said. A married mother of three children, Fischer said that for the time being, she is content to be fasting "on her own" in her household. Fully supported by her family and friends, she regularly shares with them the reasons why she has adopted the practice.

Fischer found, as she gained experience, that her greatest learning was in understanding what she "needed" versus what she "wanted." "Fasting made me think about what it is to be hungry," she said. "It changed the way I used language about being hungry since I wondered how that must seem to people who really are hungry."

With helpful interpretive materials for each fast provided, updated and posted online through the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterians are invited to fast the first weekend of every month, beginning on Friday evening and ending with Communion or a communal meal on Sunday. Those who have health-related conditions or other concerns which would prohibit fasting from food are encouraged to eat simple meals or design a fast that fits their circumstances. "Not everyone in my small group at church is able to do a full-on fast," Fischer noted.

Fischer's "Just Food and Faith" group has found the monthly focus on a specific country to be especially enlightening and helpful. "As Americans, we rush through our day without having an awareness of what goes on in other countries," she said. "The recent focus on Haiti really helped me to feel connected since some members of our church, including myself, will be going to Haiti."

Recalling Jesus' teachings about fasting, Fischer regularly examines her own behavior during each fast. "When I'm fasting, I try not to be aware of it and talk about it, like Jesus taught," she said. "Since I'm new to this, I still need a lot of time to practice."

"I'm not a great spiritual leader because I fast," Fischer said, "but I am perhaps a step closer toward that growth."

Presbyterian News Service