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A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent
Clarify your true hungers--and nourish your soul. Fasting is not just the physical practice of giving up food. Fasting can also be a way to combat our culture of endless distractions and busyness. Fasting is an act of letting go, of making more internal space to listen to the sacred whispers of our lives. Join Christine Valters Paintner, online abbess of Abbey of the Arts, on a spiritual journey through seven different kinds of fasts, including fasting from control, from our attachments, from our grasping, and more. When we practice these fasts, we can discover unexpected spiritual gifts, as well as answers to deeper questions, leading us to "What is my true hunger?" Perfect for Lent, or any period when a deeper intention to clarify your true hunger is needed, A Different Kind of Fast helps us enter our hearts, stripping away old patterns and habits. Featuring striking woodcuts from artist Kreg Yingst, the book draws on the wisdom of the desert elders, Paintner offers practical contemplative practices like lectio divina, breath prayer, visio divina, meditation with desert wisdom, contemplative walks, and creative rituals. As we fast from rushing, planning, being strong, holding it all together, seeking certainty, and control, we can softly reorient ourselves toward that which nourishes and fulfills us, for the reflective Lenten season and beyond.
237 pages, Paperback
Published January 2, 2024
17 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Christine Valters Paintner
29 books136 followersChristine Valters Paintner, PhD is the online Abbess at AbbeyoftheArts.com, a virtual monastery and global community. She is the author of over 20 books on contemplative practice and creative expression including three collections of poetry. She lives in Galway, Ireland where she leads online retreats with her husband John. Christine is a Benedictine oblate, living out her commitment as a monk in the world.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 5, 2025
A unique spin on a Lenten read. Based on the spiritual practice of doing less, laying down burdens, focusing outward. I enjoyed it.
April 19, 2025
I spent time with this daily practice throughout Lent this year. It was impactful when I truly embraced it (which wasn’t always the case). I gleaned a lot of wisdom from its pages, and I’m glad I found it! It really is a gem!
April 9, 2025
I loved this book! The intro is super long, FYI, so if you plan to use it for Lent, I recommend beginning reading a week or two beforehand. Paintner has very clear, beautiful, helpful explanations of various spiritual practices in the introduction that I have found myself returning to and referencing with others. For each week through Lent, there are 7 daily practices that are short, impactful, and simple. I connected with some (especially Lectio Divina and Visio Divina) more than others. I loved the way she frames fasting (which is a term I usually have a major aversion to) and the types of fasts she recommends (fasting from hurry, distraction, anxiety, certainty, etc). Beautiful book!
May 14, 2024
Last spring a woman I met on retreat recommended the Online Abbey of the Arts as a source of inspiration; I signed up for the weekly newsletter from the online abbess, Christine Valters Paintner, and really like her approach to Christianity -- incorporating respect for nature and the sacred feminine. The newsletter is how I found out about her new book, published just in time for Lent, and a very helpful companion during my forty days this year. Each week she suggested “a different of fast.” Instead of giving up chocolate or alcohol, readers were encouraged to fast from multitasking and inattention, scarcity anxiety, speed and rushing, holding it all together, planning and deadlines, and finally, certainty. How countercultural is that? Paintner also offered a daily practice to help reflect on and deeen the fast of that week.
Even though the enthusiasm I began with on Ash Wednesday didn’t last, I engaged in each fast and did at least a few of the practices each week. I highly recommend the book and plan to go through it all again next Lent.
Even though the enthusiasm I began with on Ash Wednesday didn’t last, I engaged in each fast and did at least a few of the practices each week. I highly recommend the book and plan to go through it all again next Lent.
April 20, 2025
A wise guide, exploring our deep needs, employing beautiful daily practices. A rich Lenten resource.
February 9, 2024
I’ve loved every single one of Christine’s books. I couldn’t wait for Lent to read her newest. The activities were meaningful and her activity suggestions perfect. I especially enjoyed her lectio and visio devina meditations. The contemplative walks were lovely and the breath prayers perfect for my new yoga practice. This was a beautiful retreat for lent or any time of year.
March 30, 2024
This book - a Lenten devotional, even a guided retreat in book form - was published this year and kept calling to me.
It was a bit expensive once shipping to New Zealand was factored in, but as the days to Lent kept ticking down, I kept going back and looking at it online. And then one day it was sold out, so I guess I wasn't the only one getting called to. Well, that was that.
Except there was a Kindle version. So I started thinking about that, until a couple of days before Lent, I clicked download.
It's a lovely book. Through the rhythm of a different kind form of meditation for each day of the week, on a repeating cycle week to week, it's an opportunity to experience different methods, even as it explores a different theme each week:
Fasting from consumption to embrace simplicity, from distraction to embrace presence, from anxiety to embrace trust in abundance, from rushing to embrace slowness, from strength to embrace vulnerability, from planning to embrace ripening, and from certainty to embrace mystery. All this with the aim of, as the subtitle says, feeding our true hungers.
From the intro: "Through contemplative practice we also can move to a space beyond words, where our intuitive understanding comes to insights before we can articulate them. It is a heart-centered knowing that is receptive rather than grasping, intuitive rather than logical, and a slow ripening rather than a quick fix. In this inner spaciousness we begin to transform our wounded and broken places to remember our original wholeness. Slowly we become people who live in and respond to the world through love. Becoming people who live in the fullness of love is the deepest hunger of all."
For me, there were multiple profound moments. Sometimes fleeting, some days not at all. Days that passed by without noticed profundity are no fault of the book - that's just how it is with the spiritual life.
The most profound experience came for me on the last meditation of all (Easter Saturday). I can't tell you about it, because it's none of your business, haha. But I count that experience, right at the end, as a significant gift. Thank you.
If there's anything that is disappointing, then it's looking back over the material and not remembering its significance. Lent is actually quite a long time. Also I wonder if it's a symptom of my morning-addled brain. Perhaps if I would do as I'm told and journal things, I might retain them better. But I stand resolutely stubborn against journaling. I spend all my days working with the written word and I refuse to bring writing into my devotional practice. So there.
The forgetting or inattention did, however, mean that I made a 'new' discovery right at the very end of the book. I realised that in one of the forms of meditation each week, we had received the gift of an object in our imagination. The penny only just dropped that this was going on, and the significance of each gift:
A clay bowl (for simplicity), a beeswax candle (for presence), a pomegranate (for abundance), a spiral shell (for slowness), a small glass vial (for vulnerability), a rosebud (for ripening), and a stone (for mystery). Lovely.
It strikes me that, seeing as this is a brand new book, a whole lot of people, in many places, in their own little spaces, were all undertaking this journey, together, for the first time. After Kiribati, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa are the first countries in the world to greet Easter morning. So I write this having just read the final pages of the book on this fresh day, and greet my fellow travelers.
It was a bit expensive once shipping to New Zealand was factored in, but as the days to Lent kept ticking down, I kept going back and looking at it online. And then one day it was sold out, so I guess I wasn't the only one getting called to. Well, that was that.
Except there was a Kindle version. So I started thinking about that, until a couple of days before Lent, I clicked download.
It's a lovely book. Through the rhythm of a different kind form of meditation for each day of the week, on a repeating cycle week to week, it's an opportunity to experience different methods, even as it explores a different theme each week:
Fasting from consumption to embrace simplicity, from distraction to embrace presence, from anxiety to embrace trust in abundance, from rushing to embrace slowness, from strength to embrace vulnerability, from planning to embrace ripening, and from certainty to embrace mystery. All this with the aim of, as the subtitle says, feeding our true hungers.
From the intro: "Through contemplative practice we also can move to a space beyond words, where our intuitive understanding comes to insights before we can articulate them. It is a heart-centered knowing that is receptive rather than grasping, intuitive rather than logical, and a slow ripening rather than a quick fix. In this inner spaciousness we begin to transform our wounded and broken places to remember our original wholeness. Slowly we become people who live in and respond to the world through love. Becoming people who live in the fullness of love is the deepest hunger of all."
For me, there were multiple profound moments. Sometimes fleeting, some days not at all. Days that passed by without noticed profundity are no fault of the book - that's just how it is with the spiritual life.
The most profound experience came for me on the last meditation of all (Easter Saturday). I can't tell you about it, because it's none of your business, haha. But I count that experience, right at the end, as a significant gift. Thank you.
If there's anything that is disappointing, then it's looking back over the material and not remembering its significance. Lent is actually quite a long time. Also I wonder if it's a symptom of my morning-addled brain. Perhaps if I would do as I'm told and journal things, I might retain them better. But I stand resolutely stubborn against journaling. I spend all my days working with the written word and I refuse to bring writing into my devotional practice. So there.
The forgetting or inattention did, however, mean that I made a 'new' discovery right at the very end of the book. I realised that in one of the forms of meditation each week, we had received the gift of an object in our imagination. The penny only just dropped that this was going on, and the significance of each gift:
A clay bowl (for simplicity), a beeswax candle (for presence), a pomegranate (for abundance), a spiral shell (for slowness), a small glass vial (for vulnerability), a rosebud (for ripening), and a stone (for mystery). Lovely.
It strikes me that, seeing as this is a brand new book, a whole lot of people, in many places, in their own little spaces, were all undertaking this journey, together, for the first time. After Kiribati, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa are the first countries in the world to greet Easter morning. So I write this having just read the final pages of the book on this fresh day, and greet my fellow travelers.
April 3, 2024
This was an incredible book for Lent. The title of the book encapsulates beautifully the essence of the entire book; A Different Kind of Fast, feeding our true hungers for Lent. This book will not be placed back on the shelf until next year, but will go in my book basket of my favorite books to reflect back on during the year. I did not participate in “the meditating with the desert elders” as that is not a part of my spiritual practice, but I did not let it take away from all that this book had to offer. I was still able to receive from wisdom gained in her sharing about the desert fathers and mothers. I especially enjoyed the breath prayers and Lectio Divina and was specifically challenged in the area of imaginative prayer. My book is filled with book darts marking all of the pages I want to refer back to, but I will leave you with only one quote.
“God is never a set of concepts to be understood and grasped, but a relationship to encounter. In this way, the spiritual life is always a journey and in process. We do not let go once and for all but move through the layers of clinging in our lives until we are living more from our hearts than our minds. We do not arrive, but travel the horizon, realizing that it is always receding from our view. Often, we meet this mystery in the place of our own unfulfilled longings.”
“God is never a set of concepts to be understood and grasped, but a relationship to encounter. In this way, the spiritual life is always a journey and in process. We do not let go once and for all but move through the layers of clinging in our lives until we are living more from our hearts than our minds. We do not arrive, but travel the horizon, realizing that it is always receding from our view. Often, we meet this mystery in the place of our own unfulfilled longings.”
April 3, 2024
I've become a fan of Paintner's writing , theology and thought process. "A Different Kind of Fast" gave me the opportunity to view and understand Lent through many lenses (Desert Fathers and Mothers, Scriptures, and ancient teachings and teachers). The book also impressed upon me the need to move deeper into my time of reflection, make some changes (journaling) especially as I discern in change in ministry focus and location.
June 14, 2024
My sister invited me to join her in Lent 2024 for a different kind of fast. We both purchased this lovely book and journeyed through Lent together reading the reflections and practicing very creative and effective daily fasts. I especially enjoyed Paintner's lectio and visio devina meditations, more than once ending in tears. I loved this beautiful retreat into the desert with my sister!
April 23, 2025
Read with a weekly book club, via zoom, for a Lenten practice.
Great reinterpretation of what fasting is and how to be more mindful about it, so a deeper spiritual experience can be explored. Really appreciated the variety of prayerful experiences for the reader to use.
So much is packed in, that I will be rereading it next Lent.
Great reinterpretation of what fasting is and how to be more mindful about it, so a deeper spiritual experience can be explored. Really appreciated the variety of prayerful experiences for the reader to use.
So much is packed in, that I will be rereading it next Lent.
April 1, 2024
Finally! A Lenten devotional book I could start and actually finish. Each day of the week had a different spiritual practice with which to address the focus of the week, and I found that very helpful.
April 20, 2025
This was a different type of lent liturgy I read along with Sarah and Michaelanne. A gift for this moment in time to enter into a different type of fast. The Christian Mysticism underlying the book was a different nourishment and invitation to embrace mystery. A sacred echo for me these days.
March 28, 2024
What a beautiful and impactful book.
So thankful for this guide during Lent.
Looking forward to doing it every year.
So thankful for this guide during Lent.
Looking forward to doing it every year.
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March 31, 2024Beautiful, artistic option for Lent to experiment with a variety of spiritual practices.
April 7, 2024
I found this such a refreshing perspective on Lent.
April 17, 2025
A really lovely, different way of embracing Lent.
April 19, 2025
A lovely, easy-going devotional for Lent, creatively exploring spiritual practices that center us on what matters most.
April 21, 2025
Very challenging and one I want to read again next Lent or maybe sooner.
April 27, 2025
I got way more out of this book than I thought I was getting.
April 30, 2024
I liked the themes for each week, the passages for lectio divina and especially the visuals. The part about the desert fathers was kind of weird. Especially trying to "talk" with them. Lots of good ideas and concepts, just not always my cup of tea.
May 3, 2025
A beautiful book to accompany me this lent. Deep insights and compelling reflection. I can imagine reading this annually.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews