A reminder of what we're missing

This is a great article - one of a series that asks "How can followers of Christ be counter-cultural for the common good?"

This is a really challenging article which has stayed with me - particularly the following section.


"It seems that for Daniel and his comrades, being a counterculture consisted of surprisingly small decisions—small acts of reorientation to remind them daily that in spite of their privileged status in the capital city of the world's most powerful empire, they belonged to another King and another kingdom."

and this section

Frederica and her family fast twice a week, a practice that goes back to the earliest Christian centuries and an ancient discipleship manual called the Didache. ....they observe this fast every Wednesday and Friday. It's not total abstinence from all food, but rather avoidance of foods that come from animals, whether meat, eggs, or dairy products... the "Daniel fast"—because it essentially replicates the diet Daniel and his friends adopted upon arrival in Babylon.

.... it is a twice-weekly reminder that we are in exile and that our use of animals for food is itself tainted with echoes of the Fall. The Daniel fast is not just a discipline to develop self-control and dependence on God; it is a reminder that the abundance we enjoy cannot, in this life, be entirely separated from the alienation we endure from God and from God's creatures. It is a small act of reorientation, a small act of exilic consciousness in the middle of every week.

I love that concept - small acts of reorientation.....