15th day of the Baha’i month of the fast, where we do not eat or drink from sunrise to sundown.
For me, it often happens that I take one drink at mid-morning, then make it through the rest of the day. By the end of the day, truly, your body has grown used to the feeling of hunger. It’s not “hunger pains” anymore, but just that your brain has trouble thinking. Focusing is not happening anymore. Your mind wanders, and just feels tired.
One of the purposes of the fast is to connect to the rest of the world, in the sense that in reality, a WHOLE LOT of the world’s population goes to bed hungry. This is hard for us to remember, in America. 2/3 of the world lives on something comparable to $2.00/day. Worrying about children surviving, or dying of malnutrition or simple diarrhea which could be stopped with a simple teaspoon full of medicine that the developed, industrial-based world has readily available to them. We saw just a hint of this in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, where people holed up in the SUPERDOME, of all places, had babies and old people dying for lack of WATER! It was unimaginable. Especially here in America. But it happened.
Baha’u’llah says, “Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor. . . ” one of my favorite lines in His writings.
Tell the rich
of the midnight sighing
of the poor.
Why would the poor be sighing at midnight?? Shouldn’t they be asleep? Perhaps they are hungry.
Late in the day, when I truly fast, my fingers are stone cold. It’s like your system is partly shut down. Circulation slows, the brain is muddled, yet you can go through your day. You can make it, it’s just not the easiest thing.
And for us, we think of the suffering of Baha’u’llah, and of the Holy Ones, and our intensity of love deepens. To be close to Him is our longing and desire. Such a sweet soul, One who endured the taunting and cruelty of the world with supreme grace, “the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”.
Doctor Grandma 
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