betsybeadhead

Originally posted on Facebook August 26, 2012

Sometimes I’m not very charitable. I feel sad if folks are suffering because there was an accident. However – if folks are sick and hurting because they have refused to take care of themselves (they smoke, drink excessively, eat unhealthy foods, refuse to exercise) then that is different. I want to start yelling – WAKE UP! We aren’t doing each other any favors when we look the other way. A doctor really did me a favor when he found out I smoked (5 clove cigarettes every day). He literally got right in my face and yelled – Quit Smoking!

My Mom died at 53 from smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. What a stupid way to die. Friends are sick all the time due to bad choices. I see folks at the library who are morbidly obese and all they do every day is play games on the internet. They are literally wasting their lives. One says she comes to the library to play games because she doesn’t want to take care of things at her home. Those things will still be there – adding up. This is an addiction – I understand this all too well.

Quit being a slave to your body. Your body is like a 5 year old sometimes. It wants what it wants, and it wants it right now. Feed me candy! Sit on the couch! Watch stupid shows that waste time! Eat fried food! I don’t want vegetables – they are icky!

The train is coming. You can’t avoid it. Years and years of bad choices, of allowing your body to control you only result in pain and suffering. Death is inevitable. However it can be delayed, and you can have a good healthy life for many years if you choose wisely.

When I start exercising, the first 5 minutes I hate it. I don’t want to be there. In 10 minutes I think I’ve been there for 25, and I want to stop. I push on. In 30, I think it isn’t so bad, and I can do more. In 40, I start to be sad that it is almost over. At 60 minutes I’m done and I feel great.

I’ve started to realize that this pattern is the same with starting anything. The first time you start something good for you, there is a lot of resistance. You do it a little longer, and you think why am I doing this – there’s no results, this is stupid. If you keep at it – you start to get into it and you feel better. Your mind plays tricks on you – be stronger than your mind.

There are so many excuses to be made for not following the healthy path. Excuses lead to misery.

Wake up. Choose to live. Choose to be alive and awake and healthy. This is all a process. You won’t get there overnight. Every day you will have to make choices. You will fall, you will fail. The difference is – get back up and start again.

Our taste buds have been taught in our Western society to want a high-fat, high salt diet. This can be weaned out of you so that you actually prefer healthy food.

Drink more water. Work towards not having any sodas.

Eat more vegetables. Try to eat fresh ones – not processed. Aim for a “rainbow” of color on your plate.

You really don’t need three plates of food at the buffet.

Eat slower. Chew your food. The slower you eat, the more you will digest, and the sooner you will realize you are full – and you won’t overeat.

Choose organic when possible. Yes, it is more expensive. Choose what you can, and have the rest be conventional. Every little step counts.

Avoid fried foods. Batter adds only fat and salt and no nutrition.

If you eat meat, go for chicken and seafood.

Walk more. Figure out ways you can walk more at work. Park further away from the store. Wear a pedometer so you have an idea of how far you are walking every day.

Try water aerobics. It is good for your joints, and it offers resistance training and cardio exercise at the same time.

I used to think that I needed to go to an all-natural diet. Raw, organic, locally sourced – I was sold on this idea. Even better – go ahead and dig up my front yard and put in some beets and carrots. Train some beans to grow up the maple tree. What a great idea! I could feel connected to the Earth and know where my food is coming from. Plenty of people are getting “homesteading” books these days. Folks are either afraid of pesticides or genetically modified foods. The terrors are there – they are real. Lab rats prove to us that you shouldn’t mess with Mother Nature. Or they want to grow their own food to help out with the grocery bill. It is always cheaper to do it yourself, you know.

But I’m a terrible gardener. I don’t know what to feed my plants. I over water or under water. I don’t know what plants need shade, and what parts of my yard have shade all day. I also work all day long – by the time I have time to work on the yard it is dark outside. And even though I was raised by a Mom who loved to garden, she didn’t teach me a single thing about it. Sure, I could look things up – I have a library and I know how to use it. Sure, I could ask friends to show me how.

But I don’t think that is the point. I don’t have to do it all. I don’t have to grow my own food. I don’t have to sew my own clothes. I don’t have to repair my own car. I think that we all benefit when we are interdependent. It is through our common efforts that we are able to live the life that we have. Not growing my own food gives me the time to create jewelry. Not sewing my own clothes gives me time to write. Not repairing my own car gives me time to read books that inspire me.

Then I started to think that all-natural was closer to the way God intended it. No artificial stuff for me. The more mankind gets involved in something , the further away from real it gets. So wear cotton or linen, no rayon. Eat sugar and butter, not aspartame or margarine. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients on the label, don’t eat it. In general, this is a good plan. Michael Pollan says in his book Food Rules this basic truth. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” By “food” he means non-processed. Eat foods your grandmother would recognize as food. Cheese is better than Cheese-Wiz. Eat foods that are plants, not foods that came from a (manufacturing) plant.

So now I’m back to the beginning.

Then one day I went to visit a friend. I had been running late, so I hadn’t had my coffee. My friend offered me tea and I happily accepted. But she served it to me in a Styrofoam cup. My “all-natural” side raised an eyebrow. My “recycling” side raised the other eyebrow. I was a little freaked out.
And then I remembered some things.

Buddhist monks don’t eat meat – but if they go to visit someone at their home and are served a meal with meat, they will eat it. They eat it out of respect for the fact that it is a gift that is given to them. They eat it because no good will be done by not eating it. The animal is already dead. Refusing to eat this meal will not restore the animal.

And I remembered something from Madeline L’Engle. She wrote a book called “Walking on Water”. It is about what it means to be a Christian artist. She says that it is essential to be a co-creator with God. She says that God created humankind as participants. We are His hands and His feet – we are created, and we are creators. I’ve heard similar ideas in a Jewish podcast that I enjoy listening to. It is called “Spiritual Tools for an Outrageous World” and it is by David Sacks.

Perhaps the biggest thing that came to mind was something I read in a pamphlet on Eucharistic adoration by Daniel Connors. He said in one of the prayers that it is amazing that Jesus chooses to reveal Himself to us in bread and wine. “…they do not exist without God and human beings./Even the wheat and grapes they come from/ do not occur naturally,/ but are the product of human cultivation.” He goes on to say “You are fully God and fully human./ How wise you were to choose to be present to us in a form that cannot exist/ without God and human beings/ both doing their part.”

So I sat and drank my tea in the Styrofoam cup, comforted by the teachings of my Buddhist and Episcopal and Jewish and Catholic friends in spirit. It was good.