A Cultural Fast

How stepping away from my familiar rhythms in Peru became an unexpected act of spiritual renewal.

Notes from a Sabbatical in a Foreign Land

Most of my life, I’ve heard about fasting—abstaining from food or water for a time. The goal is to become more sensitive to the voice of God through the Spirit.

I’ve never been very good at fasting. In my younger days, when my body could do without, I lacked the discipline. Now I’m older and daily medications limit my ability to go without food. (Take this pill with food….)

Did you know that there are more than 19 different named fasts in religions around the world? There’s Lent in the Catholic tradition, Yom Kippur in Judaism, and Ramadan in Islam. The Daniel Fast is one used by churches of various denominations. It’s not just abstaining from food completely. Many of the fasts are about striking selective foods from your diet for a specific time. I was taught that when you crave a certain food during a fast you’re supposed to turn attention toward God with a prayer or scripture reading.

I learned later to broaden my definition of a fast. It might be food, but it could be media or TV or your favorite social app. (Not looking at you, Facebook!) Let me introduce you to the idea of a cultural fast.

Downtown Cusco on another holiday. My bald head and height marks me as a foreigner.

I didn’t come to Peru looking for a “cultural fast,” but it found me. Somewhere between the altitude and the Andes, between my broken Spanish (but improving!) and the shrill sound of flutes in parallel fifths and fourths echoing through Cusco’s stone streets in daily parades—a sound both ancient and dissonant to Western ears—I realized: I had stepped outside my culture. And more than that, I had stepped away from my self as I normally know it.

In Mississippi, I am saturated. Saturated with sound, media, notifications, and the inertia of my own routines. I swim in a culture that prizes speed, productivity, updates, cleverness, and convenience. Even faith, in that context, can become another form of performance.

But here, in this old city of Inca deities and Catholic saints, I feel the absence of that culture. And in that absence, I begin to see priorities in a different light.

This sabbatical isn’t just a break from work. It’s a fast—a willing abstention from the cultural diet I’ve grown used to. Vacations are meant to be relaxing getaways from your normal routine. A sabbatical is much more intense. You’re away for a longer time. It takes a week just to adjust, to get through the jet lag of travel and waiting in airports. It takes a week to learn your way around the public transit system. It takes a week to become acclimated to a new routine.

The second week, you’re still a tourist. You’re still on vacation in a way. Your native culture hangs around your neck like a signpost to the locals. But by the end of the second week, something changes. I have a favorite little store around the corner for some fruit and snacks. (They have Cheetos here!) I have a market within a slow walking distance that has the most marvelous variety of potatoes. There’s a café across the street from the language school that sells the best fresh roasted coffee.

By the end of the second week, I’m over the rush of travel and tourism. I can stop and listen.

Like the psalmist wrote,

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Stillness is hard to find in my ‘normal’ everyday life. But here, when you're removed from your native rhythms, your priorities are unmasked.

Being in a different culture brings a mirror up for you to observe yourself with a more objective eye. Seeing myself reflected in a new culture shows my blind spots, shows the things I take for granted, shows things that I thought were important, but perhaps should never have been.

And maybe that’s the truest purpose of a sabbatical—not escape, but recalibration. To be disoriented just enough that we re-learn how to walk with intention. Like the apostle Paul, I want to

“not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of [my] mind.” (Romans 12:2)

This fast is helping me find that renewal.

Back home, I know the algorithms will still be there. So will the emails, the pace, the performance. But I hope I return not just rested—but changed. Leaner in distraction. Richer in clarity. Anchored in something deeper.

“Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
and give me life in your ways.”
—Psalm 119:36–37

I may not be very good at fasting from food, but this cultural fast is kicking in high gear.