Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It is a time for "giving up" things - mainly as a way of creating space for the serious study and prayers that lead up to Easter. Very effective Thought For The Day on Radio 4 this morning.
Fasting has been secularised, commodified and made into a retail "experience" in the post-war period, and is now marketed under the generic branding of "detox" (I know "generic branding" is a contradiction in terms, but I am writing this in a hurry). It is another example of the way consumerism has corrupted and supplanted the religious impulse. You pay more (vastly more) and you get far less.
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