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?

 

Anti-(fill in the blank)

I realize some people say things just to get a rise out of others.  Sometimes a person will say something from a defensive, ignorant position.  Still others open themselves to a certain element of transparency, but they seem to always be thrown back into the pot of saying-it-just-to-get-a-rise kind of folks.

Below, I’ve posted an excerpt from the formerly Christian author Anne Rice.  Now, I don’t know too much about her, but as I mentioned in my post last week, I relate to many of her sentiments.  I am also firmly convinced that she doesn’t fall into the group of saying certain things just hoping to rub someone raw, but of course we could probably say that is at least partially true of Jesus.  But, as last week, I’ll save that for another post.  Possibly next week.

All that to say, below is Anne’s quote.  I contend that it’s worth some serious consideration for those of us who claim we fall under the Christian umbrella.

Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

Now, I know all the arguments, because I’ve heard them before.  ”That’s a brash generalization.”  ”Not every Christian is like that.”  Both arguments, if we stretched them out a little bit are probably at least partially true, but that’s the problem.  Us evangelical  Christians are awesome at pointing the finger at other people and making brash general statements, so this one really isn’t too far out of the park.

So, there’s quite a bit to say on this matter.  I’m rather interested in what others have to say, so feel free to offer any thoughts, experiences, feelings sentiments that might help us move more toward being more fully human and making our short existence here a better one for everyone.

As the prophets of scripture were known to do, I’d like to offer a bit of a scathing commentary.  I along with Anne, would argue that if indeed God created, and it was good, he’s likely not going to be anti anything.  Besides that, if anyone can name anything that Jesus was “anti,” as it pertains to the realm of God being realized here and now, for everyone, feel free to clue me in.  I also feel somewhat immobilized by evangelical Christianity and I am convinced Jesus didn’t live as he did, teach as he did and socialize as he did to found a new institution to imprisons its members, binding them in a biblical straight jacket of rules.  I much prefer living life to its fullest than moping around worried about the last twenty sins I committed, or better yet, the sins everyone else around me is committing because they haven’t set up camp next to me…

More on this as the conversations continue.