SOUL FOOD:

‘Tis the season to be jolly. No, make that conflicted. At least for me and countless other Christians in the United States.

Just as ads and retail displays begin to egg us on to party and shop like there’s no tomorrow, we’re trying to prepare for a 40-day period of self-denial.

Today marks the start of the Nativity Fast, which leads to Christmas (a.k.a. the Feast of the Nativity) for most Orthodox Christians. No meat, dairy products or eggs from now until Dec. 25.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we will aim to eat only vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and perhaps shellfish in temperate amounts. Where shellfish is pricey, though, consuming it defeats the spirit of the fast.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we can add a bit of oil and wine to the menu. And on Saturday and Sunday seafood we can include varieties with backbones instead of shells.

The point, as one priest puts it, is “not cater to our bellies by preparing especially tasty foods.”

Each year, the menu that once seemed so austere, seems a wee bit richer. But, nevertheless, juxtaposed against the eat-drink-for-tomorrow-we-die style festivities of the holiday season, before the 40-day fast wraps up, I still managed to feel deprived.

There are days when the weekly grocery stores ads all seem to be printed in scratch-and-sniff. Creamed, over-cooked peas somehow seem like a delicacy.

Yet curbing the stomach’s cravings can be the easiest portion of the fast. Scripture reading, reading from the writings of the Church Fathers, almsgiving and additional hours spent in prayer are also part and parcel of the fast.

“Do you fast?” asked St. John Chrysostom, then “give me proof by your works.” This is the harder part of the Nativity Fast, or any fast for that matter.

Chrysostom means “golden-mouthed,” and this saint named John was so called because of his eloquence. As for the works he had in mind, he was specific:

“Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.

“Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.

“Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful.

“Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.

“Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism.

“For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers?”

If you have not tried it before, try it now and let me know. Which is easier?

To go without meat or cheese or wine? Or to go without any form of lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy or pride? These are known as the “seven deadly sins.”

In the Western churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, the Nativity Fast is known as Advent and it has become less restricting in terms of length and foods.

This year Advent begins on Dec. 2, well after our national, traditional pig-out on Thanksgiving.

But the purpose of the Nativity Fast and Advent remain the same. Both are seasons of introspection and preparation for Christmas Day — for Christians, the birth, or incarnation, of God in the flesh.

Whether it’s called Advent or the Nativity Fast and whether it lasts for 40 days or fewer, the season is prescribed to improve the state of the human soul. Just as good diet and exercise build and strengthen the muscles in our bodies, the disciplines of fasting build and strengthen the “muscles” of our souls.

Yet unlike Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers diets, this diet is free. One central “diet aid” is prayer.

For this season my Antiochian Orthodox Church offers 40 daily readings from The Akathist of Thanksgiving, an akathist being a prayer meant to be said standing rather than sitting. And since the Nativity Fast falls so close to our national day of Thanksgiving, it seems doubly appropriate.

The Akathist is available in two translations, the first by Metropolitan Tryphon of Turkestan and the other by Hieromartyr Gregory Petroff, a hiermartyr being a clergyman who died for his Christian beliefs. Gregory Petroff died in a Siberian prison camp.

His translation of The Akathist of Thanksgiving is subtitled “Glory to God for all things!”

It reminds me of what Catholic apologist C.K. Chesterton described as the principal aim of his life: “Taking things with gratitude and not taking things for granted.” If we can manage this, it curbs our appetite for pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony and lust (in less archaic sounding terms, any hankering for what is not ours).

The Akathist offers thanksgiving — glory to God — for the simple and the sublime.

“Glory to You, Who called me to life,” it says. “Glory to You, for Your hidden and evident goodness. Glory to You, for every sigh of my sadness.

“Glory to You, for the festival of life Glory to You, for all that is heavenly, foreshadowing eternal life.

“Glory to You for providential encounters with people for the love of relatives and friends for the gentleness of animals who serve me for the luminous moments of my life for the happiness of living and moving and contemplating.”

The Akathist is 14, 5 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch, page-long prayers. It gives thanks for “providential coincidences” and “the gift of premonitions,” “the guidance of a secret inner voice,” “revelations in dreams and when awake,” and the destruction of “our useless plans.”

For our national day of Thanksgiving and especially for the days from now until Christmas, “The Akathist of Thanksgiving” is a meditation on our many material and spiritual blessings.

If you would like a copy of either translation, just send me an e-mail this week with your mailing address, and I’ll send either or both.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].