diet | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Change your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

By Anita Mathias

Today’s meditation is on changing our lives by changing our thinking.

So, just before Jesus bursts on the scene in the Gospel of Matthew

The no-nonsense, utterly serious John the Baptist

Comes with an utterly serious message, Repent

In the Greek, metanoeite,

for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

The Kingdom of Heaven? A new era in history

Has begun: The era of Jesus,

When ordinary, heavy-laden frazzled people can, just like that,

Squeeze through a narrow gate into an inner new world,

The invisible but real Kingdom, described by the Apostle Paul

as righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Who would not want this?

What is this narrow door into a bigger, happier life?

It is to repent, in Greek metanoéō. From meta, change, nous, mind

Repenting literally means to change one’s mind, to think differently

And that is the way any real change begins in our lives.

We change how we think about things.

We are “transformed by the renewing of our minds,”

In Paul’s lovely phrase in his letter to the Romans.

It is all gain; it is, seriously, a wiser, better life,

To cultivate what the Apostle Paul calls

“The mind of Christ” as we consider the issues of our lives

(And it’s common sense to cultivate the mind of Christ

Because Christ’s mind is far cleverer, more incisive,

More original and startling than ours could ever be.)

Metanoia, repentance, thinking differently

Can mean mentally seeing Christ standing between us

and the questions, puzzles and uncertainties in our lives.

We see the problem we face bathed in the golden light of Christ,

And we ask him to show us what he thinks about it.

For instance: to take an issue which obsesses many people today:

Conforming to a socially-enviable body shape

Can consume much mental, emotional and physical energy.

But God created both hippopotamuses and cheetahs.

His delight in us, his amusement as he sees us,

Is not dependent on whether our BMI is 18, 25 or 30,

Whether our dress size is 2 or 14. God who made our bodies

Loves and values them more than we do,

Just like as the author of the book loves it more

than the one who bought a copy.

God, who made us, thinks we are fabulous.

So rest in his love.

And so metanoia, a new mind, thinking differently, repentance

Means rejecting vanity-based worries about appearance

While realising, that, of course, God does want us

To do everything we can do

To have a strong, flexible and healthy body,

So as to have the strength and energy

To do the unique work He has called us to do,

For as long as we live on this earth.

So rather than being a reed swaying in the wind

Of the latest dietary pronouncements of the latest self-promoting guru,

Metanoeite, think differently:

Change your mind for the mind of Christ

Put your body, your health and your lifespan

Into God’s hands, and ask him,

And then trust him to guide you beyond

The latest pundit’s latest Noes, Noes

To eat blessing,

To eat the food which will be a blessing

To your individual and unique body, rather than a curse to it.

Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Metanoia, having a new mind, thinking differently, could mean

Asking the Spirit,

Whom Jesus says will teach us all things

To show us the light and easy way

To build joyful movement into our lives

Creating a body that will remain flexible and strong

For the rest of our lives. We must ask Jesus

Who promises us joy to teach us the right,

Most energising movement for us, say, yoga for flexibility,

or hefting weights for strength, or long-distance walking or running,

Flooding the mind with serotonin, and dopamine,

and slowly changing the deep structure of our brains.

We might also ask the Spirit to show us how to get strong and muscly

in a way consistent with love, perhaps incorporating vigorous housework

and gardening into our routines, as well as long walks with family and friends.

Being mindful that Jesus said that those who will not

Deny themselves and take up their cross are not worthy of him.

We remember that Christ says that his future disciples

will fast, and even promises us a reward for it.

(A reward from God!! Wow!)

Fasting, for the right periods of time for each of us,

blesses an overtaxed, overweight body,

and saves both time and money. Far better

than wasting brain space and emotional energy

In dietary obsessions.

And, as we take on the challenges life throws at us,

Like changing our bodies, if need be,

Changing our houses if decluttering or organizing is needed

Or waking earlier as the Spirit leads

We remain aware that we have a tender father looking at us,

Aware that to him we are as beloved toddlers are to a good human parent

Aware that he is a wonderful God

A compassionate and gracious God,

Slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

As He described himself in his self-revelation to Moses in the Book of Exodus.

Let’s breathe.

Oh God of resurrection, who brings dead things to life

Who can do more in a few minutes of good ideas and multiplication

Than we could in years, we put into your hands,

Our perplexities and ask you for wisdom,

We give you our questions, and ask for your answers.

We love you. Increase our love,

We will trust you. Increase our trust.

Amen.

This meditation is on Matthew 3:2

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Please subscribe at Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks!!

And, of course, I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

On Quitting Things…and Breaking Free

By Anita Mathias

I’ve read that Indians catch monkeys by placing a peanut (called “monkey nut” in India) in a bottle. The monkey plunges its slender paw into the bottle, grasps the peanut, tries to withdraw its clenched paw clasping the nut, but cannot. He thrashes around; the noise alerts the homeowner, who captures him, as a pet, as a performing monkey, or simply kills him to stop relentless thefts from fruit trees. The thing is: all the monkey has to do to be free is to let go of the peanut. If he could do that, he could have the whole world…but not the peanut. It’s as easy…and momentarily difficult…as that.

It’s a metaphor for how letting go of the things that consume too much of our time, energy, emotion, and attention, that have us thrashing around like a flustered, bewildered, infuriated monkey…is easier than we think, though, of course, costly.

I’ve been on a journey over the last few months of quitting habits I have had for years. For instance, I had 2 tablets of Nightol (an herbal concoction) to sleep for about ten years. Then I read that while it helps you drift off more rapidly, it affects the REM sleep in which the dreaming necessary for mental, emotional and spiritual health occurs, and in which memory consolidation and creative problem-solving occurs. In which emotions are processed, often resolved, and catharsis occurs. The REM sleep vital to mental health. So I decided to cut all sleeping aids cold turkey. It was hard for a few days, but now I use a meditation and deep breathing tape to help me drift off, and it works just as well, in fact better, and, my sleep is indeed deeper and more refreshing, as I had hoped.

Similarly, I had used the herb St. John’s Wort, maximum dose, as a mood uplifter for the same ten years. On learning that it affected the depth of sleep, as well as precious REM sleep, I went off it on the first day of holiday in Dubrovnik this Easter, when the sights and stimulation and adventure were enough to distract me from needing the herbal “high.” I missed it for a week or two, but that’s it.

I used to be addicted to chocolate, then cut it down to a bar a week, then to a little Green and Blacks bar a day, 85 calories, which could become two bars. But then, since my present goal is 1200 calories a day, mainly from vegetables, that little bar didn’t bring the most blessing to my body, and kept me dependent on the crutch of sugar, and chocolate, and calories to boost my brain chemistry and mood. So, with the encouragement of a health coach, I cut chocolate, just like that, and used a meditation app when I craved chocolate, and now after several weeks, by the grace of God, I no longer crave it.

Quitting chocolate was followed by quitting sugar. Keeping food charts revealed all the little treats of cookies, cheese cake, ice cream, biscuits, desserts, cake, dried fruit I had been consuming in a course of a week, so I resolved to quit buying them and two months later I hardly ever crave them. (I do have them on social occasions, but just a little because they now adversely affect my emotions and brain), Again, I tried movement, a run, or tidying my room, or guided meditation and deep breathing to snap my brain out of the restlessness of craving sweet things.

The biggest shift, which changed the whole way I eat, was cutting out carbs. Bread, rice, potatoes, noodles, pasta–sayonara. All gone. Bye-bye crisps, and crackers on cheese, and sandwiches, and garlic bread and baked potatoes. This is not necessary for everyone, of course, but the extra weight I was carrying led to sciatica (now 95% gone). Cutting carbs necessarily led to having to eat in a new way… a little fish or meat at each meal, nuts at some, and lots of vegetables and fruit. Basically, Atkins or Keto. It’s time-consuming for us… finding new recipes, and counting those darn calories, but I have lost 19 pounds over the last months, simply by cutting the things that were not a blessing to my body. (I have more to lose, by the way, but am 42 pounds down from where I was six years ago).

The hardest, the hardest thing to cut was caffeine. Dr Fuhrman, who wrote the best book on diet I know Eat to Live, says “More than a cup of coffee can interfere with your health, and your weight loss goals,” and Lisa, my health coach strongly recommended it. I was rarely without a cup of tea near my reading chair and had several cups of cappuccino or coffee a day… how many exactly became clear when I started keeping food charts. It’s almost two months since I reduced that to two cups a day, occasionally lapsing into three, and I am still struggling with that, though less than I used to. But I can still concentrate and read and write, though more slowly and less pleasurably than when caffeine made concentration razor-sharp. But without the caffeine-aided focus and speed, the artificial mountain top, there is less of a descent into the valley of sleepiness, grogginess and lost focus, which leads one craving another cup, and another. The caffeine-induced vicious circle. It is taking me a while to get used to two or three cups of either coffee or tea rather than chain-drinking tea, but God-willing, I will ultimately become a happy peppermint-tea fuelled girl.

Sometimes we define ourselves by things we do… I need carbs, I am addicted to chocolate, I have a sweet tooth, I need… I am… but if these self-definitions, these evil stories, these vicious narratives do not serve us, we must change them. It takes time and effort to write a new story on paper as in life, but we can always begin. It’s murder for a week or so when it comes to sugar or chocolate or carbs, longer when it comes to caffeine, but then we are out of the cave of powerlessness and helplessness, and into the light.

The creative Bob Goff quits something every Thursday. He quit Bible studies, concluding that he had enough knowledge already to follow Christ, and he now actually needed to DO something, and instead has a Bible Doing with a couple of friends, discussing how they can practice what they just learnt. He quit all Boards of which he was a member of… and so on. Quitting dead-weight things is a good habit. This is what I’ve quit over the last few month… herbal sleeping pills, herbal mood uplifts, caffeine, chocolate, sugary treats, bread, noodles, pasta, pizza, rice, potatoes, crisps.

I am still quitting one thing a week. For instance, I am limiting my internet use with the help of the web-blockers, Cold Turkey and Freedom, cutting either the entire web for four hours at a time, or just the social media and news. I am also decluttering a little. This has begun to release time for more life-giving things, reading, writing, learning German, gardening, yoga, and a bit of running. Like Bob Goff, I plan to quit one thing, big or small, each week, and as time shows up, add new practices and habits, big or small, that are nourishing and life-giving. Wish me luck!!

P.S. Of course there has been an element of the chairos time, and the grace of God involved. If breaking free from bad habits were as easy as just stopping it, I would have done so long ago; we all would have. And perhaps, it is. (Though watch this)

But there is also, as the Bible says, an enemy of our souls, and dark forces who adore sin and bondage. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying.” Ephesians 6 10-18

There is hope for the battle in Jesus, who takes our hands as we walk on the waters of what we once considered impossible. All things are possible if we hold the hand of Jesus, and for just thirty seconds take one step in the right direction. And then, take a deep breath, and still holding onto to the hand of Jesus, take another thirty-second step into the light, towards Jesus, and health, and wholeness, and happiness.

Love, Anita

A couple of favourite and related books I’d like to recommend

Matthew Walker’s brilliant book on better sleep: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

(affiliate links 🙂

The Good Things of January

By Anita Mathias

I’ve adopted Martin Seligman’s recommended habit of recording 3 good things about my day. Apparently, people who do this report being 25% happier within 3 weeks. I think it is true. I’ve often needed to scan my day carefully to see what was golden about it rather than nondescript. After a while looking for gold becomes a habit.

It’s been an extraordinary month in many ways, with many highlights.

We’ve just spent a weekend in Torquay, Devon, walking under blue skies on beaches studded with dramatic rock formations. The mere sight of the sea is meant to reduce stress, I’ve read. It’s true I realized as I sat in front of the picture windows in the villa living room, looking at the sea, with seagulls swooping and dive-bombing into it, and hills with, wow!, palm trees beyond the bay. The English Riviera!!

We walked on the coastal trail as well as on beaches. So grateful for increasing strength and health.

2 Irene and her best friends Hannah and Lisa won the first prize in the National Cipher Challenge–and a prize of £1000. The National Cipher Challenge was an 8 week decoding challenge with tasks of increasing difficulty. The final task took them 21 hours.

2B Irene entered a competition for a free ticket to a TEDx Oxford Conference.

She contrasted Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. An iPhone is extraordinary, giving you access to all the books, information and music in the world in a palm sized gadget. However, Gates will be remembered long after Apple has joined the scrapheap of history for pouring his resources into the developing world, into health, education and women’s rights.
He has started a cascade of generosity through his Billionaires club of 127 billionaires who have pledged at least half their wealth to philanthropy.

Irene came home exhausted on the day it was due, and I had just had surgery. She wanted to blow it off, but I said, “Irene, it’s all in your head; just get it onto paper.” And so she did. And that is an excellent thing for all writers to remember, including, especially, I myself.

3 Zoe is back to the heady whirl which is Theology at Oxford.

She got a first in 2 of 3 papers in her termly exams (Greek and Doctrine of Creation) and got a cheque for £50–£25 for each First!! Imagine being paid for academic excellence—I think it’s a rather good idea.

3B Zoe is one of the three students leading student ministry and student nights at her church, Oxford Community Church. She’s getting to use the ministry skills she honed at the School of Ministry, Catch the Fire, Toronto—which is excellent!

4 After a long discussion with my oncologists, I decided to forego the chemotherapy which is standard for the stage of colon cancer that I was at, and go instead with intensive monitoring—CEA blood tests, CT scans, colonoscopies, the lot) and exercise, an increasingly healthy diet, and some supplementation with aspirin, vitamin D etc.

My cancer was not metastatic as far as the oncologists can tell and it’s possible the surgeon has removed every cancer cell… At any rate, I am letting food be my medicine, and my medicine be food as Hippocrates suggested, and am drinking lots of carrot juice, green smoothies, and moving steadily to a largely vegetable-based diet—soups, salads, roast veggies etc.

6-8 glasses of green smoothies and carrot juice can seem a lot—but hey, it sure beats chemo.! Roy calls it my veggie chemo!!

Exercise—I alternate doing two miles in two sessions, trying to walk as fast as I can building up to a 15 minute miles, with walking 2-3 miles the next day, again as fast as I can. My surgical incision has been slow to heal completely (prayers would be appreciated) , and once its completely healed, I hope to take up yoga and resistance exercises.

(PLEASE don’t send me ANY negative feedback, opinions or horror stories on this very personal no-chemo decision. On the other hand, positive feedback, stories, resources and inspiration will be welcome.)

5 I am back to normal, and because of the vegetable based diet and exercise, am more energetic than I was in my thirties. Well, I am weary and bone-tired some days (to be expected because I am writing hard and exercising hard), and bursting with energy on some days. Interestingly, the tired days are the days I have slacked off on my green juices and carrot juice and salads and veggies… I have never felt the connection of food and energy so strongly.

As I told a friend about how surprisingly well I feel, she said, “You know, maybe you have been healed.”

I was silent. Hundreds of people have told me that they’ve been praying for me. And of course, as Biblical and Christian history attests, just one simple heartfelt prayer from one person of faith can work a miracle.

Maybe, just maybe, God has listened–why should he not? Why should I assume he might not?–and arranged for any cancer cells which MAY be left to be killed, or go dormant.

Why not? Prayer works, I know it does, and perhaps, once again, God the great magician who daily pulls sunrises, sunsets and shimmering moons out of his hat, has pulled complete healing too.
May it be so. Amen!

What have been the best things of your month? Tell me!

Linking up with Leigh Kramer

Fail Better: Only Do Not Go Backwards

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

The aged Abraham sends his servant back to Ur to get a wife for Isaac with these instructions, “Make sure that you do not take my son back there,” Abraham said. “Only do not take my son back there.” (Gen. 24:8).

Straight ahead lay the land of promise, the land to which he had specifically been called. Ur was the land he had been called out of.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

― Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho.

Only do not go backwards.

* * *

Failing Better with the Bible

I am reading this Genesis passage because it is my third (and final and God willing successful) attempt at blogging through the Bible. My first, in 2011, failed because I make the mistake of attempting to comment on every passage, not just on what most spoke to me in the readings of the day.

My second attempt, this January, failed because I again tried to keep up with the readings of the day, an impossible, quixotic endeavour. Blogging through the Bible on a standard reading plan of 4 passages a day involves writing 1460 posts a year. Who could write that many? And who could read them?!!

So I am trying again, taking my time, listening to what scripture is saying to me, writing that down, 2-3 posts a week at best. It will be a marathon, but reading scripture is not a sprint. It is a way of spiritual transformation.

* * *

Failing Better with Diet and Weight Loss

Sometimes success consists of just hanging in there, through plateaus. Jon Acuff writes somewhere that the diet that helped him lose 30 pounds was the diet he stuck to. There’s something to that.

But there is also something in learning from your past failures: studying what worked, and what did not work, and devising a plan likely to set you up for success.

Staying in the ring, and failing better and better until you succeed!

I have learned something from each dieting failure, for instance.

1 Weight Watchers. Ugh. Emphasis on calorie restriction kept me focused on food. Also calorie restriction may not work long term: it lowers your metabolism so that when you resume normal eating, you gain it all back!

2 Vegetarianism. Because I love carbs, I didn’t lose as much as I should have on this, and, nutritionally, substituting carbs for meat and dairy and eggs probably had dubious nutritional value.

3 Metabolic Typing Diet. Turned out that I, unusually for Asians, am a “protein type.” (A throwback to my paternal grandmother’s Portuguese grandmother, and the Portuguese on my mother’s side too?) Which means I do not metabolize carbs as easily as protein, more easily gaining weight with carbs than with meat or fish.

4 Atkins/South Beach. Being a protein type, I lose weight on these, but find it hard to get through the first two weeks!!

5 The Weigh Down Diet. The Presbyterian church I attended for a few years in Williamsburg had a Sunday School class on this eccentric diet! It was eat anything you want, as much as you want, when you are hungry, and stop when you are full.

By allowing chocolate, cookies and cheesecake, the diet aims at removing them as objects of lust. Oddly, I lost 10 pounds on this. But, nutritionally, it was nuts!

* * *

However, instead of viewing these discarded diets as failures, I have decided to view them as learning experiences. I have been very slowly losing weight (13 pounds over the last 9 months) through life-style change for life, designing a diet which includes things I’ve learned from each of my diets

1. I no longer set out to restrict calories as that lowers my metabolism, but, in effect, do so by trying to have a green smoothie and a salad at most meals.

Because of the impressive nutritional and immunological benefits of largely vegan and vegetarian meals, I am trying to eat a diet that’s largely fruit and vegetables, with some protein, according to my body’s felt needs.

2. I limit sugar, chocolate and nutritionally empty white flour or white rice.

3. I try to do a 3.5 mile walk every second day, which probably works wonders for my metabolism.

4. From the Weigh-Down Diet, I’ve learned that it’s okay to have occasional favourite meals, Indian and Chinese takeaway etc., and the occasional sweet treat. Knowing these are permitted on occasion, I do not get discouraged and resume undisciplined eating after one of these treats.

5 Another Weigh-Down Principle: Never use food as a recreational activity or for emotional needs. The risks to health are not worth it.

So I am trying to find appropriate interventions when sad, angry, bored, stressed, which do not involve calories. I am also trying to break a lifelong habit of grazing through the day, and am trying to train myself not to eat between meals unless I am truly hungry. Knowing I am not going to eat until the next meal gives me the same sense of peace and freedom as when I lock myself out of facebook, twitter, email, and newspapers!

Weight loss has been slow with many plateaus, because I am overcoming the engrained bad eating habits of a lifetime, reacquainting myself with what physical hunger feels like, learning not to eat absent-mindedly. But I am determined, whatever I do, not to go backwards.

* * *

Failing Better with Early Rising

I have, for many years, had a romantic desire to wake at 5 o’clock, and enjoy sunrise and sunset in the same day.

However, I have my most concentrated periods of thinking , writing and reading in the evenings. So cutting out a beloved productive time by going to sleep at 9 to wake at 5 felt a bit stupid to me, and my attempts to wake at 5 were short-lived.

My latest wake-early attempt began in late May, and I am now waking at 6.40 a.m., pushing it back 15 minutes every 4 days then maintaining it a bit. Should get there.

I have learned from my failures. Telling myself I have to get to bed early stresses my evening, and deprives me of productive time. So I am using bi-phasic sleeping which works very well for me: less than 8 hours at night, but a longish nap in the afternoon between two periods of work. Iris Murdoch in The Good Apprentice calls this getting two days for the price of one!

* * *

In any enterprise, running an orderly house, learning to write, becoming formidably well-read: keep proceeding, even by millimetres in the direction of your dreams, and you will achieve a success you did not dream of in lesser hours.

If you can’t proceed, rest at a plateau; just do not go backwards.

And then try again, though not using the same strategy which just failed (one definition of insanity). Instead, keep what worked, examine what failed, see how to replace it with something better, and try again, failing better until you succeed.

How about you? Are there areas in which you’ve learned from failure, and are now failing better? Or even succeeding?

In which Christ Writes to an Overweight Woman

By Anita Mathias

Jesus, I am fed up of food rules and diets, and giving them up. and sabotaging myself when stress or cravings or boredom demand: “Chocolate. Crisps. Comfort foods.” Oh, and the sadness of exercise in a world of subconscious triggers, when kebabs and pizza and cookies undo all the virtue?

And I am fed up, but I cannot give up the battle to be a light, flexible strong woman who can walk fast for long hours, because I love to travel, and I love to see your world, and I love to walk by rivers and in mountains, in wild and beautiful Aslan’s own country, and I want to continue being able to do so into my nineties!

And I think of this little canker in my life in an area which should be joy. And I think of decades of abandoned diets, and I could cry, and so could you. I am fed up of vacillating between diet plans, but you are never fed up of me; your heart wells with sadness and compassion for me and you love me, and you want to give me the keys of life, and to tell me your secrets, which lie in plain sight for her who has ears to hear, and eyes to see.

And I know that once I have sought your face, and heard your voice, things are easier. It is easier to set my face like flint on my course.

So speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

* * *

Turn it over to me. Hand your weight, and your body which I created and whose life and health and death are in my hands over to me. Hand it over; let it be my worry. It is too heavy a weight for you to carry.

From today this area of your life will no longer be your worry but my worry. Not your business, but my business. I will manage it. Entrust it to me. Trust me. When you don’t know what to do, ask me, and I will tell you.

I do hand it over. Food, weight, fat, my body, all this is now your concern, not mine. When I don’t know what to do I will ask you.

* * *

Thanks.

Leave it in my hands now. I am managing it.

A table I set before you

In the presence of your foes

And your cup overflows (Ps 23:5)

I will prepare

a feast of rich food for you,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines. (Isaiah 25:6)

Eat from the table of goodness I set before you, remembering me,

For the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet. You are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

* * *

JESUS, a feast of rich food, the best of meats and the finest of wines? Banquets, feasts! I am overweight, I tell you.

In the sheet of goodness which tumbles from heaven, are four footed-animals, birds, seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, and large numbers of fish.

Child, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ Do not submit to the rules of this world: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules are based on merely human commands and teachings. But now is the time for feasting. In me, it always been “Yes.”

Feasting and fasting, feasting and fasting, come savour these rhythms I have built into creation with work and rest, seedtime and harvest. Enjoy the good things I richly provide for your enjoyment

Eat when you are hungry, with celebration, with joy, with thanksgiving, in remembrance of me. And then, fast until you are truly hungry again. For food is for the stomach, and not to be eaten when the body feels no need of it.

* * *

Jesus! No food rules? Really? Me, I’ve tried low-carb and no-carb, and Atkins and vegan, and low-fat and low-sugar, and…

I know.

Think of blessings (and curses). The original food I gave Adam— every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit has blessing in it. You know what is a blessing to your body: fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, fish…

However, everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. I have been recorded eating bread, and fish, and a Passover meal, traditionally of lamb, bread, egg, wine, and charoset, with honey, fruit and nuts. None of these would have been an optimal sole food.

Be careful though with foods I wouldn’t have recognized, treats known to be toxic, food deliberately manufactured to be addictive.

When hungry, eat for health, and eat with joy.

* * *

What if I crave food when I am not really hungry? To relax, because I am stressed, as a break, and for pleasure?

Slow down, child. Slowing down is the beginning of the spiritual life. Examine the real needs of your soul and body when you find yourself wanting chocolate or “comfort foods.”

Build a treasure box of the heart in which you put other pleasures: a quick run, reading blogs or a book, reading scripture, yoga, a movie, fixing a date with a friend. Or just pray recreationally. Or pray and garden, pray and walk.

I might free you from this food-crutch instantly, today. Or I might heal you gradually, as the blind man I cured first saw men like trees walking.

But healing is in your destiny, because we need to deal with this challenge, you and I, so you can move forward on your pilgrim’s progress on the narrow road of sanctification, dealing with the next challenge, and the next.

* * *

Finally, remember the value of physical training. You eat recreationally for the sense of bliss and satiety, for energy, to keep you going for long laptop hours, for forgetfullness, for dopamine surges, for highs. Running will give you all this.

Come, let’s run the race together.

Image credit

Murakami’s “What I Talk about When I Talk about Running”: The Connection between the Creative Life and Exercise

By Anita Mathias

murakami Available on Amazon.com

I am thoroughly enjoying listening to Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” as I am trying to learn to run (using the NHS Couch to 5K app.)

When Murakami began to write full-time, he gained weight. “If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight.” He is an introvert, so running suited him.

As he runs, he changes physically–losing all his extra weight, and developing muscle. “Now, after years of running, my musculature has changed completely.)

And he finds the hour or two of solitude as he runs important to his mental well-being. The endorphins and “runner’s high” “heal the loneliness,” of his solitary novel-writing. ‘This is not so much an intentional act, but an instinctive” solution, he says.

If he feels frustrated, he goes running a little further, “to physically exhaust” his discontent. The experience leaves him physically stronger, and he thus “improves himself.”

And as his muscles “groan and scream,” his “comprehension meter shoots upwards, and he grasps things.”

He writes, “Having a body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. If I don’t want to gain weight, I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. Eventually, your metabolism will greatly improve, and you’ll end up much healthier, not mention stronger. You can even slow down the effects of aging. Whereas the physical strength of people who naturally keep the weight off deteriorates as they age. If you don’t exercise, your muscles will weaken, as will your bones. So this physical nuisance should be viewed as a blessing.”

He says the most important things for a novelist are talent, focus and endurance—the same traits a long distance runner needs. Running helps him write, and vice-versa. Each of his passions gives him the traits he needed for the other.

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Anyway, I have loved listening to him as I am trying to learn to run, which, sadly, has not been easy.

But, in running, I have found a form of exercise I enjoy and I really look forward to my every second day short run!