The Weight of Myself

Weight Watchers tells me, “Count your points.”

Points are a way to anticipate how the consumption of food finds body mass and becomes weight.   The goal is that the body weigh less but not nothing.

Points are a hassle.  The counting of points requires attention if not mindfulness.  The counting of points can consume a day.   So after three weeks of refusing, (and I do have regular times when I refuse to count) I will start counting points midweek when it seems too late to do so.   Not only for my body but also for my soul.

I will count the points because I am not a good judge of the weight I throw around.

The points counted provide me a better sense of the weight of myself.  Of course, I do not just consume food.  There is an invitation to consume life and its experiences.   Those, too, need counting.  For some experiences “cost more” to consume than others.  Again, I am not good a good judge of the weight I throw around unless I am mindful of what I am taking in.

So in my forties, after consuming a lot of junk, I have grown weary of it.  I simply don’t consume the fast or process foods  as much as I used to.   This habit was a long time in coming.  Synchronizing the body and mind is years of work.  Funny, I thought my mind was ahead of my body.  When in reality, my body was the laboratory for my mind to learn the method that would also have a terrific spiritual benefit.

In my forties, I can also say that I have consumed a lot of spiritual junk as well.   Again, an expensive way to consume resulting in a weighted experience that I am tempted to throw around as I relate to others.  I used to take in and digest experiences that are the spiritual equivalent to junk food.  This I do not do anymore.  Rather, I savor what is fresh, life-giving and full of possibility.  This is not always comforting ingestion.  Painful experiences can be full of possibility.  This is not always self-focused ingestion.  How I treasure feasting with others as they celebrate their power and their empowerment of others.   Gorging no longer works.  The ingestion of what gives life and is robust with possibility requires the homage of careful breakdown upon the palate of life.  These are my best prayers….the digesting ones that never find adequate words.    Such a spiritual diet leaves me ready to “weigh in” confidently.

What is life-giving, fresh and full of possibility  is not expensive to consume.  The expense is in their breakdown, digestion and assimilation into my life…..as fiber to my soul.   Take, eat, this is my body….freshly broken,  full of possibility and life-giving.     You will not throw your weight my child, you will use it to carry my yoke.  

Jesus and weight watchers?  Well, for me anyway.  After all, he loved to eat.

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Electric Jesus

I regret that my early excitement about Jesus  was extended as if I were a split and live wire.

Stretched if not reaching in order to zap comforting practices among those living intense realities.

As if  to shock people with the value of the Jesus who would not….should not be contained.

That Jesus no longer human and, in fact, uncontainable….an eternal flow more powerful than any shock.

I regret that I did not value being a conduit earlier.

 

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Hallowed Be Halloween (part 1 of 6)

I would not say that our house is enamoured with Halloween.  The children have dressed up in years past.  They have all walked the trick or treat route.  But at the end of each year, hey are ready to go home a bit early and they are a bit uncertain of the most gruesome costumes.  One year, as my children were worried about a group of marauding teens dressed like ghouls, one mother said to me….”Leslie, the holiday is good for your kids it  will toughen them up!”   But I wonder….is the holiday meant to desensitize us to the gruesomeness or  the uncertainty of tricks and treats?  Or is All Hallow’s Eve, in the spirit of all good festivals, intended to increase our sensitivity so that we can live with a greater sense of adventure?

Every week in church, we say the Lord’s Prayer.  Some say the ritual is good for us.  That is softens our heart and makes us better people.  But again I wonder. Is the prayer or even the art of praying meant to keep us docile and obedient before a mysterious God?   Or, could prayer be a ritual meant to increase our sensitivity to life and the adventure of faith?

It has been a temptation within the Christian church to distance Halloween and good Christian fun even though the two had so much to do with one another in the early church.  Perhaps over the next several weeks we can consider,  “Hallowed be Halloween”!

 

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