I'm a dung beatle...
(this is my 300th post...for the record)
...so I had a salad for lunch today and I can't believe the psychological effect that had on me. I ate like a starved sow over the holidays, indescriminently wolfing down anything in my path and yet, it took one salad to make me feel good about myself again. My body is still in shambles...my health is still reeling from the abuse, but a simple salad made me feel like I'm whole again. Wow.
I can't help feeling like this is how I do the Christian life some days. I'm really living out an unhealthy existance, but with one implementation of waking early to pray one day and I feel like I'm on top of the world again. It's amazing the psychology of spirituality. Psychologically speaking, I feel acquitted. I feel justified. I feel healthy again. But in all actuality I'm still steeped in horrible habits leading to unbelievable unhealth. I'm no where near whole, though the "salad" made me feel a certain o.k."ness". I can't believe how easy it is to play tricks on my psyche. It balances on such a finicky fulcrum. It relies on such a mush of meaning. It leans on a rickity shanty of shallow truths. It's a house of cards for crying out loud. A measly little salad passifies the desire to feel healthy. (feeling healthy is no different than being healthy in this line of thinking) In reality my construct for healthy habits is an absolute debacle, but that matters not, so long as I have a periodic salad to soothe my spirit.
I feel like I do alot of things to prop myself up. So many of these props are "feeling good" techniques that I have learned over the years. They give a semblence, a quasi/psuedo sense of peace...and that's good enough for me. I don't have time to unpack the restless feelings, so I pop in a placebo to play games with my pyche and change my mood, which changes my perspective, which changes my belief, which changes my behavior, which changes my life. I get the changed life without the real change. Or, at the very least, a shallow and unsustained stint of real change. One salad, I think you would agree, doesn't make me a healthy eater. One salad shouldn't give me a feeling of superiority over all those who don't eat healthy. One salad shouldn't cancel out the "eater's remorse" I feel from the holidays. One salad shouldn't be given that sort of power. But somehow, it does. It makes me feel so much better about myself, life and the people around me. I can't believe the bounce in my step and the shot in my arm and the pep in my perspective...all because I consumed a glass of water (oh, forgot about that little happy piece of health) and an everyday house salad. I think I'm a posterboy for health & fitness and I'm two hours into this supposed diet. I'm a chump...a bonefied chump.
I know this is a jumbled mess of factoids for some who are reading, but I'm just overwhelmed right now with how ridiculous it is that I feel as good as I do after one good meal. I wonder if that's what alot of people feel who go to church for one hour on the weekend? Should that make us feel as good as we do about our otherwise pathetic faith? Honestly, should that fill us with giddy sufficiency and warm feelings of intimacy with God when in reality we are treating a hemorrage with a bandaid? Have we fallen so far that any sign of life makes us feel like we've arrived and that everyone else is fat and overweight and undisciplined and less committed than we are? I can't help but feeling like this false sense of "salad security" is trying to tell me something larger about my psychodic spirituality.
It's days like today that I feel like God has more mercy on me than I generally realize. Honestly, the things he puts up with are some of the most absurd fallacies that I try to pass as truth known to man. Thank you God that you haven't torched my ant-like frame under the magnifying glass of your glory. I'm a dung beatle needing God's grace to cover up my rank odor.
...so I had a salad for lunch today and I can't believe the psychological effect that had on me. I ate like a starved sow over the holidays, indescriminently wolfing down anything in my path and yet, it took one salad to make me feel good about myself again. My body is still in shambles...my health is still reeling from the abuse, but a simple salad made me feel like I'm whole again. Wow.
I can't help feeling like this is how I do the Christian life some days. I'm really living out an unhealthy existance, but with one implementation of waking early to pray one day and I feel like I'm on top of the world again. It's amazing the psychology of spirituality. Psychologically speaking, I feel acquitted. I feel justified. I feel healthy again. But in all actuality I'm still steeped in horrible habits leading to unbelievable unhealth. I'm no where near whole, though the "salad" made me feel a certain o.k."ness". I can't believe how easy it is to play tricks on my psyche. It balances on such a finicky fulcrum. It relies on such a mush of meaning. It leans on a rickity shanty of shallow truths. It's a house of cards for crying out loud. A measly little salad passifies the desire to feel healthy. (feeling healthy is no different than being healthy in this line of thinking) In reality my construct for healthy habits is an absolute debacle, but that matters not, so long as I have a periodic salad to soothe my spirit.
I feel like I do alot of things to prop myself up. So many of these props are "feeling good" techniques that I have learned over the years. They give a semblence, a quasi/psuedo sense of peace...and that's good enough for me. I don't have time to unpack the restless feelings, so I pop in a placebo to play games with my pyche and change my mood, which changes my perspective, which changes my belief, which changes my behavior, which changes my life. I get the changed life without the real change. Or, at the very least, a shallow and unsustained stint of real change. One salad, I think you would agree, doesn't make me a healthy eater. One salad shouldn't give me a feeling of superiority over all those who don't eat healthy. One salad shouldn't cancel out the "eater's remorse" I feel from the holidays. One salad shouldn't be given that sort of power. But somehow, it does. It makes me feel so much better about myself, life and the people around me. I can't believe the bounce in my step and the shot in my arm and the pep in my perspective...all because I consumed a glass of water (oh, forgot about that little happy piece of health) and an everyday house salad. I think I'm a posterboy for health & fitness and I'm two hours into this supposed diet. I'm a chump...a bonefied chump.
I know this is a jumbled mess of factoids for some who are reading, but I'm just overwhelmed right now with how ridiculous it is that I feel as good as I do after one good meal. I wonder if that's what alot of people feel who go to church for one hour on the weekend? Should that make us feel as good as we do about our otherwise pathetic faith? Honestly, should that fill us with giddy sufficiency and warm feelings of intimacy with God when in reality we are treating a hemorrage with a bandaid? Have we fallen so far that any sign of life makes us feel like we've arrived and that everyone else is fat and overweight and undisciplined and less committed than we are? I can't help but feeling like this false sense of "salad security" is trying to tell me something larger about my psychodic spirituality.
It's days like today that I feel like God has more mercy on me than I generally realize. Honestly, the things he puts up with are some of the most absurd fallacies that I try to pass as truth known to man. Thank you God that you haven't torched my ant-like frame under the magnifying glass of your glory. I'm a dung beatle needing God's grace to cover up my rank odor.
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