Healthy

Since I haven’t written anything in a couple months, I thought I’d take things in a bit of a different direction. I thought I’d tackle the tofu part of the title. More specifically, I’ll roughly iron out a couple connections that I’ve begun to explore in my own life.

So, let’s get crackin. I’m sure we’ve all heard the cliche, you are what you eat. The older I get, the truer that statement becomes. Especially in light of the work of Max Gerson and his daughter Charolette, among many others. In short, their convictions are that, though many of us would not readily admit it, we are killing ourselves by the food we are eating. Namely the heavily processed, genetically modified, trans-fat saturated, not-at-all-naturally-growing matter that fills our refrigerators and restaurants that we call food. And to top all that off, most of us are awfully sick with one ailment or another for most of the year, so we go to the doctor and get things like an antibiotic for our cold, or flu. Or we schedule a regime of chemo and radiation therapy for our cancer.

First of all, are we really that ignorant? Antibiotic?? Is there anyone else in the world who realizes that there is such a things as healthy bacteria? An antibiotic, simply put, kills ALL bacteria. Do you see the connection? The antibiotic kills the good along with the bad, which, just take a look around at the health of people around you, and you’ll notice that those antibiotics are likely doing more damage than they are doing good. But that’s neither here nor there, right?

Let’s take cancer as an example. Max Gerson was curing cancer and other debilitating diseases in 1928. Yeah, that’s right, 1928! How, you might ask? Through a raw, organic regime of massive amounts of juices and other naturally growing foods. He had almost a 98% success rate. Let’s compare that to our modern medical practices. Pretty much our only answer for the problem of cancer is, LET’S RADIATE! or chemo… This may be a shock, but according to the Abilene Reporter News today, radiation may cause cancer. But, that’s ok. Someone has cancer so we’ll treat it with an agent that also…causes cancer… brilliant idea! Here are a couple figures from globalhealingcenter.com:

• “Percentage of cancer patients whose lives are predictably saved by chemotherapy – 3%
• Conclusive evidence (majority of cancers) that chemotherapy has any positive influcence on survival or quality of life – none.

So, to take the discussion through a different door, specifically speaking to folks who would label themselves as Christian, in the broadest sense of the word, what does this mean? I would suggest that its awfully difficult to have a healthy spiritual life (be honest with yourself) and NOT have a healthy physical body. Further, I would suggest that it’s equally difficult to treat your illnesses, either medically or naturally, if the food you eat is counteracting or suppressing the desired effect of the medicine. Now, I could be lynched for this one, but I would further argue that the “medicine” you take for common and crippling diseases is in fact not helping your body heal, but making it far more difficult for your body to fight off the infections.

Essentially what I’m saying is, is that there must be some inherent connection between the health of our physical bodies, the health of our spiritual selves and the food that nourishes us. Are you finding real nourishing food or are you simply filling your stomach artificial, chemical imitations of food? Do you think you can be a chronically ill, sickly, and malnourished person and have a flourishing spiritual life? Are we so naive to think that the food we eat doesn’t have some sort of effect on our body, whether good or ill?

Just a couple thoughts. It seems to me that there are some basic assumptions that we make about our bodies, in their entirety, that are not really based on anything other than, if I die, I want to die happy (with my face buried in a hormone laced, genetically modified bacon cheese look-a-like burger). To top it off. Are you food choices sustainable, or are you supporting some sort of bigger, more global destruction of life?

 

The good, the bad and the easy

Someone does good.  Another person participates in actions that frees thousands of people from bondage.  A family lives a generally decent and moral life, sacrificing their family time, their home and their livelihood to get another family off the street.  Then someone criticizes me and/or my family and suddenly I’m the victim.  All the other good is out the door and I start pointing my finger, accusing everyone I see of exhibiting the very behavior for which I was criticized.  It’s always someone else’s fault!  In the blink of an eye, we’ve moved from success to failure.  Successes I’ll gladly accept, but the failures are not of my doing.

The story sound familiar?  I know I’ve used it a couple times, and in several different contexts.  Here’s the problem, when the s**t hits the fan, the good stuff is ignored, the bad stuff isn’t my fault and the easiest thing to do is point the finger at someone else.  Isn’t that true?  I mean, take a minute to assess all the cracks in your life that are bound by this paradigm.

Here’s the problem I see.  I would consider myself a moderate to regularly religious person.  It’s much easier for me to point my figure at every other person, group or institution other than myself.  In doing so, I alienate myself from far too many people than is probably good for my soul.  When I’m isolated, I tend to be unusually weak in all facets of life.  And for some odd reason, my initial reaction is to then assume that the external forces in my life are solely responsible for my circumstances.

Essentially, I’m allowing my own perceptions to dictate the world around me.  Most of the time I’m blinded by my own self induced isolation that I can’t get a good view of my surroundings through my own self deprecation.  And as you can imagine, the vicious cycles continues.

So, what am I getting at?  Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.  Most of my energies should probably be spent searching for and highlighting the good in the world.  And for us religious folk, that most assuredly means exploring for and discovering the good the does exist outside of our own walls, traditions and denominations.  I would even venture to say it would probably be beneficial to look for the good everywhere.  Further, I argue that when humanity bands together, seeking and striving toward good, we are all participating in the work of God.  It doesn’t really matter from what direction you are approaching, all that matters is that we journey together.

What that likely doesn’t mean is that we abandon ship only to jump onto another.  What good does that do us?  If we are all headed in the same direction (no, I will not say what the destination is, because I’m not convinced there is one), how much more fulfilling is life when we travel in companionship?  How much less painful is it when there are people to pick us up when we fall, guide our paths and walk with us?

So, the moral of this horribly fragmented story is that we must learn to travel well.  We must gladly accept aid as well as seek it out when the situation dictates.  Let us not take the easy road, lobbing verbal grenades at every turn, rather may we choose to follow good, with whoever is willing to journey with us.  My we refuse the temptation to convince everyone around me that I know the best route, or my way is in some way superior to yours.  May we make a conscious decision to wrecklessly love, journeying in relationship and seeking Good for all.