This month, I preached a sermon about storms—the relentless, exhausting experience of being tossed about, crying out, and wondering when it will end. To introduce this theme, I shared a personal story about Billy the Goat, a small stuffed animal my son has adopted, but which was originally given to me as a reminder of a prophetic word spoken over me during a particularly difficult season of my life. A minister had prayed for me and saw a mountain goat perched high on a craggy landscape, while sheep grazed below in the lush valleys. The words he spoke to me were:
You were built for the crags.
It wasn’t the encouragement I wanted at the time, but over the years, I’ve come to recognise its truth. Maybe some of us are made to endure the harsh terrains of life, drawing sustenance from the challenges that others may not survive.
In my pastoral context, I rarely meet anyone who isn’t facing some storm—whether personal, political, or social. We are living in a moment marked by crisis, social upheaval, and overwhelming pressure. It’s exhausting. As I preached on the storm narrative from Luke 8:22-25, I was struck by the overwhelming question: When will it end? But I wonder: Is this the right question to ask?
In a culture increasingly driven by crisis—a culture obsessed with urgency, drama, and overstimulation—I’m beginning to suspect that the question we should ask is: What if we’re being trained to drown?
What if, instead of asking when the storm will cease, we asked how we can learn to navigate it? And so, this Lent, I’m contemplating a different kind of fast—not one from food, but from the culture that seems to be constantly generating storms. It’s not that I’m retreating from the world, but I want to explore what it would look like to fast from the ceaseless consumption of media and social distraction. To pause, take a step back, and learn to engage with life’s challenges in a deeper, more intentional way.
As we grapple with the constant storms in our lives, I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, specifically his famous soliloquy:
To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?
In these words, Hamlet wonders how one can endure the myriad injustices that shape life—from the most intimate betrayals to the systemic failures of society. His personal suffering is set against a backdrop of broader societal corruption. Hamlet asks whether he should passively endure these injustices or actively fight against them, though he seems uncertain about his ability to do either. The question he poses is not just philosophical, but existential; essentially asking, “Am I a passive victim, or do I have the agency to change my fate?”
This question resonates with our contemporary experience of crisis. We, too, live in a world that often feels overwhelming and out of control. The media thrives on urgency. Everything is unprecedented. Everything is a crisis. The sheer volume of information we consume is exhausting, pulling us from one catastrophe to the next, leaving us, like Hamlet, to ask:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?
The weight of crisis after crisis dulls our resistance, saps our strength, and leaves us in a state of near paralysis. It’s as if the constant bombardment of noise is designed to make us surrender, to give up on clarity, to numb us into compliance. The media, politics, and even the systems of power rely on this sensory overload. They know that when we are too tired to think clearly, too overstimulated to resist, we become easier to control. I see it in my newborn son. When he fights sleep, I sometimes flood him with sensation—rocking, shushing, bouncing—until he can’t resist any longer. The world does the same to us. It doesn’t want us awake; it wants us numb, exhausted, compliant.
We experience ‘the slings and arrows of life’ in various forms—personal struggles, societal injustices, and the constant barrage of media and political crises. In the face of this, it’s easy to feel powerless, overwhelmed, or even paralysed. Just as Hamlet contemplates his own powerlessness, we may wonder: Do we have agency to change our circumstances, or are we merely at the mercy of forces beyond our control?
This is where cultural fasting comes in—not as an avoidance, but as an intentional act of reclaiming agency. Hamlet’s existential crisis is a reminder that we must face our pain and our circumstances with clarity and resolve. In much the same way, we must reclaim agency in our response to the crises of today. This doesn’t mean we ignore the storm; it means we learn to act within it, with purpose and intention.
The storms of life may not subside anytime soon. The crises—personal, social, and political—will continue. But the question for us is whether we will let ourselves be overwhelmed by them or whether we can find ways to act meaningfully within them.
In Luke’s gospel, the disciples cry out in the storm:
Master, Master, we are perishing! (Luke 8:24)
They don’t ask for the storm to stop. They just cry out. And Jesus responds—not by explaining, not by offering an action plan, but by being present.
We often pray for circumstances to change, for the storm to end. But Jesus calls us to ask for the Holy Spirit—not escape, but presence.
Hamlet, caught in his own storm, wrestles with the temptation to escape:
To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to…
But the answer isn’t withdrawal or surrender. The answer is to learn to stand firm. To discern when and how to engage. To root ourselves in something deeper than the chaos of the moment.
Lent is often framed as a time of deprivation, of discipline. But I prefer to engage with the season as a time of reorientation. What if fasting from media and cultural noise isn’t about retreat, but about finding nourishment in the crags of that landscape; learning to be present in the storm rather than demanding it cease?
Again, this is where I believe cultural fasting can help us reclaim our agency. By stepping back from the noise, we could create space to think, to discern, and to act with purpose. We can choose how and when we consume information, and we can choose to engage with cultural texts and crises in a more reflective and meaningful way.
This could look like:
- Setting specific times for news consumption and intentionally stepping away afterward to process it.
- Practicing a form of lectio divina with cultural texts (films, books, articles) and news items instead of passively consuming them.
Instead of being bombarded by culture, this is about making room to see it more clearly. So:
- Choosing one meaningful cultural artefact each week (a book, a play, a work of art) and intentionally engaging deeply with it rather than superficially.
- Committing to discuss what’s encountered culturally with others rather than just absorbing it alone.
- Reading against the grain—approaching media with discernment, asking: What is this shaping in me?
The storm is not going to end. But we are not powerless in the face of it. The armour of God, as described in Ephesians 6, is not just a metaphor; it’s a practical guide for standing firm in the face of life’s challenges. Truth, righteousness, faith—these are not abstract virtues but practical tools for resilience in the storms of life.
So, this Lent, I invite you to join me in fasting from the constant churn of cultural crisis. Rather than passively consuming media and information, let us actively choose how we engage with the world around us. Let us reclaim our agency by stepping back from the noise, reflecting on what truly matters, and choosing to act with purpose in the face of the storms.
The Lord is with us, even in the crags. And there is nourishment—if we know where and how to look.
