Empty Calories

A friend told me something about celery the other day that made me hate America.

My friend (who is a woman, and not the slightest bit overweight) told me that she makes sure to eat celery every day. "Celery," she informed me, "is negative calories." I had not heard of the concept of negative calories before, so I asked her to explain. Apparently, an average serving of celery has about 5 calories, and the act of chewing celery burns more than 5 calories, thus causing the act of eating it to consume more calories than ingested. 

She smiled when she said it, as though she had discovered something incredible.

What does the rest of the world think about negative calories, I wonder?

When did we miss the point of eating? Why do we try so hard to fill our bodies with emptiness, instead of eating what we need to survive, and then giving what is left over to someone else who might need it?

It's such a tragedy that this country suffers from obesity, given the global need for food.

How terrible is it that people die by the minute over something that is killing us by its excess in our lives? I'm frightened by what the popularity of celery means for America.  I think, in fact, that if a starving child in Africa heard about celery, and the whole negative calories thing, he would have a different reaction. I'll bet he would never want to eat celery ever in his life. It is a caloric parasite. Something we eat because we feel guilty about eating.

Maybe we should. Feel guilty that is, not eat celery.

I don't really have a graceful way to end this post. I just hope to think a little more in my life about the true purpose of things, so that I don't fall into a bad place because of their presence in my life: Eating is not something you do for recreation or to relieve boredom, dating is not something you do to reinforce your identity, the sabbath is not an observation to make you feel like a better christian, and charity is not about you either. 

The list goes on. 

As long as we are human, the list goes on.

The worst offense to a good thing is when it can be used to inflict evil on someone else.

Singing, Melting, Screaming.

I've decided that the healthy thing to do would be to move on.

I know that no one reading this really knows what I mean by the aforementioned statement, but bear with me. I feel the need to say it out loud, or write it somewhere permanent, just so that I can't say that I never said it. Now is the time to move on.

I want all of you out there to know how good it is to be in a relationship with God. I can't put into the proper words how much I am dependent on that confusing, frustrating, difficult thing we often refer to as Christianity. I've been healed from so much.

Be warned, this might sting a little.

I wish I could go back in time a little... like three weeks ago, and tell the past version of me what a waste of time it is to feel sorry for yourself. The future holds healing.

All we have to do is be brave enough to ask for it.

That is the key to it all, really. We have to ask. I think sometimes I like having scars. They make me feel important. They make me feel like an adult. I don't want to go crying to Daddy with every ache and pain.

Even though He aches and pains for us to do so.

He said that in this world we would have many troubles.

Take heart.

Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (note the capitalization).

I remember spraining my wrist when I was really little. And screaming. 

I kind of wish, as an adult, that I would still be able to scream as loudly as I wanted whenever I got hurt. When we grow up, we're supposed to pretend that nothing really hurts.

Anyway, my dad was there, and he came running up to me, and asked me to see my arm. I didn't want to do anything but cradle it close to my whimpering body. We always have our own version of healing, I guess. He kept asking, and would often try to grab at my arm when it was available, which only made me retreat further. It hurt when he touched it. How could he make it better when it hurt when he touched it?

It is a willful decision to show someone else our wounds. It's painful, it's embarrassing, its... just... 

We have to. Nothing will ever improve if you never pull your shaky arm out from behind your whimpering body and let your Father touch it. It's going to hurt a little more at first...

You may say it's impossible, but I'm telling you, He heals ALL wounds. He restores me daily. He makes me to lie down beside still waters. He put a new song in my mouth. A hymn of praise to our God.

He lifts his voice, the earth melts. I melt.

And then, I am just this pool, this useless thing, that can take no shape except to follow the contours of His hand, where I was when I lost my own shape. 

I shall not want.

I ask myself, and you, my loyal reader(s?), what wound are you afraid to show Him? 

He knows. He loves. He heals.

Scabies

I need some new clothes.

literally. 

Some people say they need new clothes like "oh, my God, I haven't been shopping in like, three months and I need new clothes!" I'm more like "I need a black shirt for my new job and all the pants I can wear for my old one are stained and/or with holes in them."

Not "new" clothes anyway. I don't buy new things.

I went into a Khols today. First time I've been in a legit clothing store in a long time. I forgot how good new clothes smell. Incredible. I kind of felt like it was Christmas, in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. Of course, I didn't buy anything there. As I mentioned before, I don't buy new clothes. Everything second-hand. I dream someday of buying brand new clothes without feeling like a failure. Someday, there will be new things that are not made by some misty eyed kid in Sri Lanka (but I bet they don't really cry anymore) . That's the goal. I can't wait for that day. In the meantime, I am resolute to not support the textile industry.

The cashier at Goodwill told me that someone she knows got scabies from clothes bought at the store I was at. 

Gross. I'm taking a shower.

It could be different. I could have dedicated myself to a career, gotten some full time work, spent A LOT less time volunteering at church stuff, and get paid to do all the stuff I do for free. Then I would have money, and a little power, perhaps a small amount of fame. Who knows, I might be pretty talented if I didn't have to do so many damn church slideshows...

but then...

...who would I be?

There's always two sides to the equation, two choices we can make for how we spend our lives. I chose to invest in other people. That's why I'm so poor I have to check my bank balance before I do my laundry. You can't have both. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was rich and had no compassion. Or, perhaps I could trade in a little of my compassion for a little more money. 

How much would I trade?

To quote the great Calvin and Hobbes, "As usual, goodness doesn't put up much of a fight."

On the one hand, we have a small, quiet life, filled with a reasonable amount of comfort (perhaps a wife and kids). On the other, stress, worry, poverty, and of course, scabies.

I choose scabies, and I refuse to feel anything about that decision except relief.

And perhaps a little itchiness.