"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God." Matthew 5:6 The Message We live in hungry times. Ours is a consumer culture, predisposed to quickly fill the cravings of body and mind. The idea of fasting--the voluntary denial of something for a specific time, for a spiritual purpose--sets us immediately on edge. But Lynne Baab makes the case that anyone can fast. Fasting is an expression of freedom. Free from the patterns and habits that mark everyday life, from time to time we can move beyond our appetites into meaningful encounter with God. In Fasting you'll discover an ancient Christian practice that extends beyond giving up food to any regular activity in our contemporary lives. You'll see how taking a break from eating--or driving, or checking e-mail, or watching television--opens us up to discover new things about ourselves and God and the world around us. You'll see that while not everyone should forgo food, anyone can step out of routine to feed the soul. In a time of great spiritual hunger, God invites us all to a feast: fellowship with the Creator of the universe, where all our truest needs are identified and attended to.
I'm so excited about my 2011 book, Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World, because it reflects many of the lessons from all my childhood moves and it draws on interviews with dozens of people about what friendship looks like today, with Facebook and so many other new ways to communicate. In the videos on this page, I talk about what I learned from writing Friending. I invite you to visit my website, www.lynnebaab.com, to learn more about my books and to read articles I've written on some of the same topics as the books.
I lived more than half my childhood overseas, which gave me an international perspective that has borne fruit late in life with our 2007 move to New Zealand. I've been thinking about friendship all my life, and moving so far away made me even more convinced that I wanted to write a book on friendship.
I currently teach pastoral theology at a university in Dunedin. I am still deeply engaged with the topics I've written about it my books. I keep a sabbath every week and I still see fasting as a significant way to disengage with the consumer culture. I love and practice a variety of spiritual disciplines which are meaningful to me and have shaped my spiritual life. I still enjoy thinking about and talking about personality type and issues of midlife, and I continue to speak and teach about preventing burnout among Christian leaders.
I am so grateful for the privilege of being a writer. If you have read my books, thank you. If you choose to purchase one of my books for the first time, I hope and pray that it will encourage you to live a richer and fuller life.
