God with a Hollow Stomach
(short version)

Based on Isaiah 58:1-12 – A people devoted to religious practice discover that God rejects worship divorced from justice and repair.

The hall smelled of polished wood and dust, the kind of smell that carried itself from one generation to the next. Thomas stepped inside, the new coordinator for the annual fast, and found himself surrounded by the quiet hum of preparation. He had heard about the tradition, about how it had begun as a desperate measure in a harsh season, but what he saw now was precise, practised, rehearsed. Everyone knew what to do. Everyone knew how to do it properly.

Tables were set in neat rows, lined with pitchers of water and small bowls of dates for breaking the fast. The floorboards gleamed as though polished to please someone invisible. Thomas took a slow step forward, half-expecting the ritual to be chaotic, alive with the same raw urgency he had read about in the historical accounts. But there was nothing. Only order. Only perfection.

He watched Eleanor, a woman who had coordinated the fast for decades, move silently from table to table, adjusting chairs, checking water levels, and offering polite smiles. Her efficiency was almost theatrical, a show of competence rather than warmth. When she passed, Thomas noticed the crease of concentration on her forehead. Every detail mattered. Every movement was correct.

He followed the group as they formed a circle, standing with their hands folded and their heads lowered. Words were spoken carefully, passages recited with measured cadence. He tried to hear the meaning behind them, the urgency, the hunger that had birthed the tradition. But all he could hear was rhythm and repetition. It was beautiful, yes, but hollow.

Continue reading the full story here.

God with a Hollow Stomach

Based on Isaiah 58:1-12 – A people devoted to religious practice discover that God rejects worship divorced from justice and repair.

The hall smelled of polished wood and dust, the kind of smell that carried itself from one generation to the next. Thomas stepped inside, the new coordinator for the annual fast, and found himself surrounded by the quiet hum of preparation. He had heard about the tradition, about how it had begun as a desperate measure in a harsh season, but what he saw now was precise, practised, rehearsed. Everyone knew what to do. Everyone knew how to do it properly.

Tables were set in neat rows, lined with pitchers of water and small bowls of dates for breaking the fast. The floorboards gleamed as though polished to please someone invisible. Thomas took a slow step forward, half-expecting the ritual to be chaotic, alive with the same raw urgency he had read about in the historical accounts. But there was nothing. Only order. Only perfection.

He watched Eleanor, a woman who had coordinated the fast for decades, move silently from table to table, adjusting chairs, checking water levels, and offering polite smiles. Her efficiency was almost theatrical, a show of competence rather than warmth. When she passed, Thomas noticed the crease of concentration on her forehead. Every detail mattered. Every movement was correct.

He followed the group as they formed a circle, standing with their hands folded and their heads lowered. Words were spoken carefully, passages recited with measured cadence. He tried to hear the meaning behind them, the urgency, the hunger that had birthed the tradition. But all he could hear was rhythm and repetition. It was beautiful, yes, but hollow.

As he moved through the circle, Thomas noticed a young man sitting at the edge, his stomach hollow, hands trembling slightly. He wasn’t fasting by choice; he hadn’t eaten for days because he simply couldn’t afford the food he needed. He had arrived quietly, hoping to belong, but the ritual so precise, so inherited, ignored him. Eleanor noticed, too, of course. She had shifted his bowl slightly, offered a glass of water, whispered instructions about where he could sit to “not disrupt the flow.” The need was contained. Adjusted. Tamed. But not addressed.

Thomas felt a strange heat rise in his chest. He could see the human cost, the hunger that did not fit neatly into the schedule, and yet the tradition proceeded flawlessly. Every head bowed. Every prayer spoken. Every instruction followed. Nothing broke. Nothing faltered.

He walked to the wall, tracing his fingers over the wood, imagining the origins of the fast, the anxiety, the panic, the desperation. How wild it must have been, how dangerous, how alive. And now… this. This smooth, well-rehearsed silence. The ritual was immaculate, and yet it did nothing. It did not protect, it did not challenge, it did not heal. It simply existed.

Hours passed in that quiet rhythm. Thomas observed the participants’ pride and their satisfaction in performing correctly. He noticed small interactions, the polite nods, the careful avoidance of uninvited questions, the silent approval when no one faltered. And through it all, the young man at the edge remained, quietly enduring a hunger the fast did not recognise.

He considered asking a question, something sharp: Why do we do this? What is the purpose if it does nothing for anyone? He opened his mouth once, then closed it. The answer would be rehearsed, polite, unsatisfying. The tradition had trained even him to conform. Asking would be seen as naïve. Unnecessary. Disruptive. So he remained silent, recording notes in his mind, cataloguing procedures and expectations, the order that meant everything and changed nothing.

When the time came to break the fast, everyone reached for the dates, drank water in perfect synchrony, and murmured the same phrases they had spoken for years. The young man ate quietly, his hunger slightly relieved but still present, still waiting. Eleanor smiled politely at him, then turned to adjust another detail. Thomas watched the scene unfold and felt the weight of the perfection around him, the inherited correctness, the unbroken cycle, the ritual that could not bend to life itself.

He walked out into the cool evening air, the hall fading behind him. He heard laughter from the street, smelled the aroma of food being prepared elsewhere, and saw children running freely past closed doors. The world moved on. The fast had been observed, the rules obeyed, the tradition intact.

And yet, as he paused on the steps, Thomas’s mind lingered on the young man’s hollow stomach, the precise words that did not reach him, the ritual that went on without noticing. His throat felt tight, and he thought about the inherited fast, its origins, its perfection, its blind continuation.

For a long moment, he stood there, watching the sun dip low, imagining what had once mattered in this practice, imagining the wild urgency it had once carried. And then, quietly, to himself, he wondered: What is the point of this exercise?