Food for "Thoughts Matter"

Food.

Many people around the world still find gathering or producing it a focus of daily concern and effort, much more so than we in the first world. Today the Drudge Report noted that someone in New York is marketing a $1000 pizza. Grotesque.

But, we Christians pray about it every day, when we ask for our daily bread. It's the first topic of conversation on the regular afternoon phone call: what's for supper? So why wouldn't food be important to our spiritual journey? And so it is, according to Meg Funk. It's the first of the eight areas of thought-life on which the Desert (wouldn't it be fun to mis-spell it Dessert?) Fathers focussed. And for good reason.

Books we can do without. Sex we can do without. Recognition from others we can do without.

But without food we die.

So I have learned from the book "Thoughts Matter." Because of its centrality in human experience food becomes the arena out of which we first learn how to practice moderation. It is the locus where we can begin to examine thoughts as they arise, and then deal with them.

How much food is enough? How much is too little? How much is right for me?

The answer to those questions are as individual as you are.... and, like the rest of our daily lives, food is a reflection of the in-carnal-ity of our spiritual lives. Food matters, not because the food itself is important, but because it is a cause for celebration of creation and for submission to the Creator.

So, the next time you think about eating, or begin to eat, or make a comment about eating (your own or someone else's) stop yourself. Pause, pick the thought up and ask where it comes from and where it leads. I think you'll find the result most interesting.

Next time: Thoughts and Sex