Although the Sickness had partially diminished during my fast—and my bitterness toward it had definitely ebbed, thanks to the Hare Krishnas and forgiveness—I was still spending much of my time in bed except for work.
During the third week of my fast, Don, my boss of fewer than two months, sent me this e-mail: “I’m coming to town to travel with you next week.” If my career were a basketball game, this was a foul—no whistle blown.
In field sales, the Boss Coming to Town is an event that requires lots of scheduling, refining, and confirming. In an office, you get 230 days a year to wow superiors; sales reps might get two or three. His e-mail meant that I had days to do weeks of preparation, all with zero food in my belly. Also, we would be sharing six meals—three with customers.
I told myself things would work out. (Self-delusion can be a charming companion.)
I was working on my plans when the phone rang. “Reba,” Erin said, her voice full of excitement. “You aren’t going to believe it! I was walking out of Mass and tripped on the sidewalk. A guy helped me up. His name is Nick, and we’re going out next week.”
My scalp tingled. I thought of all the prayers in my journal for Erin.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I smiled. “I believe it.”
I PREPARED FOR MY boss’s visit on warp speed, ignoring the fatigue pulling at my limbs and the fact that I was running, literally, on empty.
I congratulated myself on getting all the meetings, meals, and plans scheduled, confirmed, and reconfirmed.
And then I heard the wind.
You know the story of the three little pigs, two of whom had their homes blown in? Well, the Big Bad Wolf had nothing on this storm. Hurricane-force gales huffed and puffed and blew shingles off every other roof in central Ohio. Several counties declared states of emergency, and—this being the construction industry where a disaster equals contractor gold—all eight of my appointments cancelled, leaving me with no presentations for my boss.
I called a last-minute meeting with my senior co-worker, Sharon, a fifty-something African-American Baptist woman who is equal parts Mother Teresa and Jaws. She loves her family, her church, and her Jesus (but not in that order), and I have personally witnessed her put out-of-line men in their place with one queenly glance. She knew only a little about my project because the first time I mentioned going to a Buddhist meditation center she said, “It’s good to explore, but you have to be careful not to be led astray.” Sharon was not on the short list of people I wanted to tell about my fast.
“My plans have all fallen apart,” I said quietly to Sharon, staring into my teacup while we strategized at a local restaurant. “How am I going to get through tomorrow and the next day?”
She launched into an award-winning professional pep talk, but I stopped her midway. “Sharon,” I began, feeling every inch of the emotional, physical, and spiritual costs of fasting, “in addition to the windstorm problems, I’m also fasting. How am I going to tell Don that I’m fasting? I can’t just not eat six meals in a row without explanation. He—and our customers—will think I’m anorexic.”
“Excuse me,” Sharon responded. “Did you say fasting?”
“Yes,” I replied, so quietly I practically whispered. “This is day twenty-three of a thirty-day fast. He’ll be here for days twenty-four and twenty-five.”
She looked a little stunned, like I’d announced the Easter Bunny and I were expecting a child together. I crossed my toes in hopes that she’d understand that there was no way I could quit now, even if Don thought I was off my rocker. I didn’t know what my boss’s religion was, but I could almost guarantee that it didn’t include month-long elective fasts that had to be explained to customers at lunch.
“Thirty days? You’ve already done twenty-three?” she squinted at me. “Well, honey, you can’t go quitting now. You must persevere!”
At the word, I collapsed onto the restaurant table in sobs, my pride officially on vacation with no cell service.
Sharon sat up straighter and, through my tears, I saw her expression change from that of a concerned professional to a cross between a tiger mother and a preacher. She leaned three-quarters of the way over the table, grabbed both my hands, looked directly into my eyes, and said, “You will persevere! God will get you through this; He hasn’t brought you this far for nothing, and He hasn’t brought me here by accident. Now, we gonna pray.” And pray she did, in full view of the restaurant wait staff, her words a rush of air more powerful than the hurricane-force winds. I was crumpled but slightly awestruck; aside from my parents, I didn’t know anyone who would pray for me like that. I mean, Sharon brought it, all of it—the burdens of the job and my journey and my fast—and threw it down in front of the throne of her God, as if she fully expected Jesus to pick it all up. When she finished, we just kind of looked at each other like, “Whoa.”
Sharon and I walked out of the restaurant and my phone started ringing with voicemails. Three of the cancelled appointments had called to reschedule.
“Sharon,” I said, “sometimes I think God just likes to show off.”
TRENT LOOKED SURPRISED WHEN I was humming in the morning, as peaceful as one of the painted saints on the Urban Monk’s wall. “What’s up with you?” he asked. “Aren’t you stressed out about your boss?”
I thought about it for a second. “I actually feel very calm, like everything is going to work out.”
It did. Contractors showed up to my presentations; I sailed through meetings and managed to look too busy to eat during buffet lunches. When Don and I attended our final client dinner, the scents briefly overwhelmed my reason—this is my brain on fasting. I briefly considered barreling into the kitchen at full speed and demanding they serve me every dish on the menu, twice. But, no, this would be a bad idea. First, I’d probably get fired when I turned in the expense report. Second, it was day twenty-five. I couldn’t quit now; I didn’t even want to quit. Except for my stomach, which was rebellion incarnate; it detached from my spiritual quest and spun triple-axels in my midsection.
Welcome, friends, to the Final Temptation of Reba Riley.
The nine men we dined with ordered adult beverages (Oh wine, how I love thee! How I miss thee! How I long for thy sweet embrace!) and so many appetizers that the table actually slanted a bit when they were delivered. It groaned, or maybe I did. There was one blessing amidst the Final Temptation; the guys were oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t eating. (Maybe because they were too busy licking melted butter from their fingertips?)
If the Big Bad Windstorm was a test, this was a freakin’ exam. I mean, these men were eating more food than twenty pregnant women—family-style steak and lobster and chicken and garlic mashed potatoes and, oh my God, fried cheese? It wasn’t just my mouth that was watering now; my entire body salivated—except my fingers, which were white and icy because even my blood conspired with my rebellious stomach.
I excused myself, ostensibly to the ladies room, but actually to flee the restaurant and call the Urban Monk for moral support. Hiding out in my car, I filled him in on the Final Temptation.
“Sometimes God must break us down to break us through,” he said.
I considered this; it seemed true, or maybe I just hoped it was true because I’d had so many breakdowns that I wanted them all to mean something.
He continued, “All your loss is actually gain. This is the meaning of fasting. Your meditation practice and your mantra will help you see.”
“But I didn’t have time to meditate today,” I reasoned, “and I still don’t have a mantra.”
“The mantra will come when the time is right. May God take charge of your schedule and give you the time you need to practice meditation. Remember: You can meditate with open eyes, too.”
I tried to follow this advice back in the restaurant, where I ordered hot tea by the pot and tried desperately to keep my mind off the table and on the conversation. Usually I loved these guys, but at that moment? I wanted to shove the blunt end of my unused fork in one of their eyes.
Inevitably, my buddy Shaun, salesman extraordinaire and fantastically nice guy, leaned over. “Hey. Why are you drinking so much tea instead of eating?”
“I’m . . . fasting?” I heard myself squeak the question instead of a statement, as though my subconscious wasn’t sure I would survive this meal.
“Fasting, why?” three guys asked in stereo, and the table went silent. I couldn’t answer the question. I refused to bring up religion at work. Before I could stammer a response, Shaun rescued me.
“Oh yeah, isn’t it Lent right now?” and the conversation moved on.
AFTER DINNER, I FOUND myself with an unexpected break while Don took a call. I heard the Urban Monk’s voice in my mind (“May God take charge of your schedule . . .”) and realized this stolen moment could be my meditation time. I sat alone in my car, breathing deeply for a few minutes, letting the activity carry away the day’s chatter. All was quiet for a time, until a parade of words manifested in my mind—fully formed and strung like beads on a necklace: Jesús-Rama-Krishna-Christo-Abba-Allah-lleluia-Jesús-Rama-Krishna-Christo-Abba-Allah-lleluia.
I recognized the phrase instantly; it was my mantra, sure as if it had been made to measure and hung around my neck as a gift. It tasted sweet on my lips—and sweeter in my heart as I understood I was uttering these few names of God, not to the exclusion of any deity, but to symbolize an all-inclusive meditation on the God of all forms and no forms.
Jesús-Rama-Krishna-Christo-Abba-Allah-lleluia.
I mouthed the mantra, eyes still open, awed by Mystery. My mantra had dropped into my lap at the most unexpected time. I’d been looking for it everywhere it wasn’t: outside my regular life, in religious books, in the mind of the Monk.
But my mantra was always inside my untidy life, hidden amidst all my daily cares. All I’d had to do to find it was sit down, be at rest within the mess, and listen.
TRENT CLASPED MY HAND as we sat in a wooden pew at Indianola Presbyterian, the church where we married. The old stone sanctuary was dimmed in deference to the Friday evening Taizé service, a French style of worship characterized by meditative prayer, singing, and silence. Taizé attracted me because silence was in the description. Silence and fasting seemed well-matched dance partners in the search for the Divine. (I’m still not sure if they were mutually beneficial or if I was just afraid to open my mouth lest I gobble up the nearest edible item.)
The only light came from the last slanting rays of sunset through two stories of stained glass. The usually sparse altar was decorated with painted icons, more reminiscent of European cathedrals than midwestern Presbyterian churches. Fewer than twenty congregants scattered about the pews, but the physical space between us didn’t dilute the collective purpose of reverent stillness. Perhaps it is this stillness that is missing from some modern worship; the Bible verse, “Be still and know that I am God,” seems to require stilling as a prerequisite to knowing.
Stillness resided everywhere in the Taizé tradition: in the space between the cantor’s reading of the verses of Psalm 23, in the notes the flautist and pianist played as we sang. Or maybe I just noted the stillness because, during my fast, I had become still.
Even the musicians were off to one side in half-darkness so as to remove any distraction. For a few beautiful, quiet moments, the world was only candles, silence, and slow songs of contemplation.
The Reverend, Pastor Skip, gave words of instruction from behind the congregation:
“We will now have a time for silent meditation.”
Usually I might have worried about what Trent thought of the service, but even that worry stilled. I slipped into the meditation easily, and time passed quickly. Everything inside and around me was sandwiched in a delicious buffer of silence.
The musicians led us in the song “Kyrie Eleison” (“Lord, have mercy”). With closed eyes, I realized I had completely redefined the word mercy. I used to view a request for mercy as a petition from a place of weakness, as though it meant humanity was less-than, worm-like, begging God not to squish us on the bottom of His Holy Sneaker. But now I believed mercy wasn’t less-than and needy, but greater-than together; it wasn’t a plea for rescue, but an addition of strength for the journey. When I thought of mercy now, I pictured this sanctuary as it had been during our wedding. We chose to call upon all who loved us to come alongside our marriage, requesting their support in advance. We asked, “Will you support and honor these holy vows with all that is within you?” to which they stood in solidarity and promised they would.
So I sang a long, slow, “Kyrie Eleison . . . Lord, have mercy,” and imagined the whole of the Godiverse standing to surround me, helping me complete this fast, this journey, this life.
Pastor Skip invited everyone forward to light an individual candle from the Christ candle on the altar. The sun had set, so the only lights were those held by the congregants. This was the holy hush of a candlelit Christmas Eve service, but on a random Friday. When we all had our candles, he read a verse from 2 Corinthians 5: “Behold, everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
In the stillness, my heart expanded with gratitude. I repeated the words of the verse aloud with the tiny congregation, because I knew they were true.