I am blessed to know so many awesome, loving, unique, creative, beautiful, full of life people. One of these lovely ones is lovingly nicknamed Pamelotta or Pammy. This faithful friend of mine recently gave me a book called "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I have begun reading this delicious combination of science and philosophy (a combination which Pam and I commonly adore) and would like to share. I have often been interested in food, food of every kind, every kind of food for the body...every kind of food for the soul...every kind of food for the spirit. Food: anything that sustains; anything that nourishes; anything that brings life (of course this is the definition in my mind). "The Omnivore's Dilemma is about the three principal food chains that sustain us today: the industrial, the organic and the hunter-gatherer." (p. 7) The following quote gives an example of how delightfully our eating networks with areas we don't often think of:
" 'Eating is an agricultural act,' as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world - and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasure of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world; this book is probably not for them. There are things in it that will ruin their appetites. But in the end this is a book about the pleasure of eating, the kinds of pleasure that are only deepened by knowing." (p. 11)
Isn't this route of thinking so true of our being, not just our eating? Just as how we eat effects our bodies, our economy, our politics, our culture, our environment and probably more I haven't thought of, so what we feed our soul and spirit affects all that and more. Isn't connection beautiful? Isn't connection satisfying?
Lord, I submit another level of control to you - a level I haven't seen before. If I control what I feed my body, soul or spirit, then there will be times that what I feed myself will bring an unacceptable outcome. I want to come into my highest potential for this life you have created. Therefore, you must be in control of all of me. I give you control of what I feed myself. I do not give up control to the law, although you created the law. I do not give up control to my mind, will, emotions, body or spirit, although you created them too. I give up control to you Holy Spirit. Control based on relationship and not law. Control based on love. Control based on your love which says what I eat is not what defiles me, but what comes out of me.
2 comments:
Wow! That's a good word right there! I'm so glad you like the book. When you're done, I want to finish it. And you can finish Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, now that I'm done with it. What's next?
Very interesting....FOOD for thought, I guess you could say.
Post a Comment