How My Faith Radically Changed What I Eat

Starting this Lent, I’m giving up red meat … forever. Typically, Christians have honored the 40-day season of reflection, repentance, and renewal before Easter by giving something up — like alcohol, sweets, or social media — or adding in a new spiritual discipline that helps us “slow down, to tend to our roots, and to re-ground ourselves in God,” as Jeania Ree V. Moore writes. And usually, that fast ends at Easter, when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. But this year I felt that my body — and the Holy Spirit — were inviting me to something more permanent, both for my own health and for the health of this beautiful planet God has entrusted to our care.