Obsessing over obsessing over my weight

I struggle with my weight. I know I’m not alone. It’s been the case for most of my adult life. When I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine that I would ever be overweight. I was pert near the skinniest one in the class and my mom gave me tonic to get me to eat more. I didn’t break 100 pounds until I went to college and, before I started having babies, I was slim and trim.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it all before from a bazillion other women. I know. Well, I can’t speak for a bazillion other women. I can only speak for myself. And let me tell you, there is nothing at all pleasing about being plump. I obsess over my weight. When I can’t get into any of my clothes, not even my fat clothes, and I can’t stand to look at the pictures of me that my friends have tagged on Facebook, despite all my extra pounds, there isn’t an ounce of positive self-esteem within me. And forget about feeling sexy; I am an asexual blob. I know, there’s also the matter of my health, but, to be honest, that doesn’t concern me nearly as much as the whole idea of seeing myself as a fat woman. Ugh!

I don’t know what depresses me more, that I’m overweight, or that it bothers me so much that I’m overweight. I get down on myself for succumbing to the cultural norm that says, “Skinny is beautiful.” I know it ain’t necessarily so. I can look at Renaissance paintings of roly-poly women and lament the fact that I was born too late. And I can curse Lady Columbia when she flashes across the screen at the beginning of movie, noting how she looks at least 75 pounds lighter than the voluptuous Lady Columbia I remember from the days of my youth. But the fact is, a woman in a bikini with visible ribs and invisible hips is considered desirable in our culture.

Publicly, I know I need to be enlightened enough to see beyond this. So I scoff at our strange aversion to body fat and pretend like it doesn’t matter to me. But, if I’m truly honest with myself, I have to confess that it does matter to me. Quite a bit. And although I may be angry at society for imposing this unnatural body image upon women, I’m angrier at myself for buying into it. Of course, that makes me hate myself even more. It’s bad enough being fat. Do I have to be shallow, as well?

What’s the answer? I wish I knew. It’s complicated for women. Whether we will admit it or not, we’re always comparing ourselves to other women. And weight is a major point of comparison. I know there’s a little part of me that takes comfort in noting that another woman may be more gravitationally challenged that I am. There’s also a part of me that wants to throttle women who have tight little buns. I’m certainly not proud of this, but it’s the way I am, doggone it.

In case you may not have figured it out by now, I’m about a month into a serious diet. And I’m in a bit of angst over this whole thing tonight. Normally, in such a state, I would go for the cookies, but I refuse to resort to my old self-defeating behavior. That’s a battle I can win. I know that. But the deeper battle -- the one that rages between the way I wish my weight wasn’t so important to me and how much it really does matter to me -- that's one that I suspect I can never win, this side of the grave.

I wonder. In heaven, will we all be skinny? Or will we all be fat? It would be heaven for me if it no longer mattered.

Was Jesus a bigot?

Mark 7:24-30 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.


Was Jesus a bigot? I know the question sounds unspeakable. But if the definition of a bigot is someone who is intolerant of a particular race or group of people, and if the only thing you knew about Jesus was what you read in this passage from Mark’s gospel, the answer would have to be, “Yes.” Yes, Jesus was a bigot. That’s why this is one of the most troubling stories we have about Jesus in the gospels. It’s one of those it might have been better to omit. After all, those who gave us the gospels didn’t give us every single thing that Jesus ever did. They had to do some editing; they had to decide which episodes in Jesus’ life would contribute to the larger story, which ones were most important. And, for some reason, Mark, and then later, Matthew, both thought this was a story about Jesus that we needed to hear. What were they thinking?

Jesus had been doing some pretty intense ministry. He’d just finished a heated debate with the scribes and the Pharisees about how to interpret the law. He challenged the way they had always seen things before. He pushed them to open their minds that had been way too narrow, to admit they may have been wrong about some things. That’s hard work!

So now it’s time for a retreat. Jesus heads off to escape the crowds. But of course, he is discovered. One of the people who finds him is a woman. Well, not just any woman. This woman is a mother. And not just any mother. This mother is desperate. Her daughter has a demon living inside her that threatens to destroy her.

We can only guess what that might have been about since we don’t tend to label illnesses as demon possession today. But that’s the way it was seen back in Jesus’ day. There is a devastating illness attacking the little girl, either physically, or mentally, or spiritually. And the mother is desperate.

When this woman comes to Jesus for help, he isn’t very nice. He says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” It’s hard to believe Jesus could say such a thing. Since this woman is a Gentile, and Jesus sees his mission exclusively to the Jews, he doesn’t want to have a thing to do with her. He calls her a dog. Now, if you’re a dog-lover, you may think of that as high praise. But trust me, Jesus doesn’t mean it as a compliment.

I suspect that most people would have walked away at that point, thinking, “Well, if that man doesn’t have time for me, I don’t have time for him.” But a mother who is desperate to save her child isn’t easily discouraged. No matter that the man just insulted and rejected her. She has a come-back for him. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

The next thing this passage from Mark tells us is that Jesus says, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.”

Huh? It seems like a whole lot is left out between verse 28, where the woman comes back at Jesus, and verse 29, where Jesus heals her daughter. We need a 28a, and a 28b, and a 28c. Why does Jesus suddenly change his tune?

Through the years, I’ve preached on this passage multiple times. And I’ve come at it from a variety of angles. I’ve explained the narrow-minded statement of Jesus, where he’s calling the woman a dog, as something that he was just saying for his disciples’ benefit. That he was just playing devil’s advocate so they could listen and learn from the woman something that Jesus himself already knew. I know that another time I preached that Jesus said this simply to test the woman’s faith, to see how she would react. And I remember at least once preaching about how Jesus was just being playful here. That he was making a joke and engaging in some repartee with a woman whom he suspected could hold her own with him.

In all those interpretations, I was guilty of something that we so often do when we read stories where Jesus is behaving in a way that doesn’t line up with the Jesus we have already created in our minds. I had already decided that the last thing Jesus was was a bigot. Jesus was the guy who loved everyone, especially the outcasts. Jesus never refused to help someone just because they weren’t his kind of people. So, Jesus would never call that woman a dog who doesn’t deserve to be fed. Jesus would never do that. My way of dealing with this passage was to work my way around it by making excuses for Jesus. He didn’t really mean it, he was being ironic, he had a good reason for saying what he did and his motives were pure.

Thank God, I’m in a different place now. I’ve grown in my understanding of Jesus. I don’t need to make excuses for him. I can accept this passage for what it is. And the simplest explanation for what Jesus says here is to admit that, yes, Jesus said it, and he meant what he said. Yes, Jesus was a bigot.

We have such twisted ideas about Jesus. One is that we like to believe Jesus was perfect. And by that, we usually mean that Jesus never did or said anything wrong. But when we talk about the perfection of Jesus, that’s not what it means to be perfect.

It means is that Jesus was “complete.” Jesus was at one with God. Jesus’ will and God’s will were the same. That’s the perfection of Jesus. It doesn’t mean that Jesus never made a mistake, or Jesus never said anything that was wrong.

Another thing we like to believe about Jesus is that he was all-knowing. From the time he was a babe in the manger, he knew all about what was going to happen to him in his life. He could have told you the names of his disciples before he could even speak, and he knew he was going to end up on a cross. Well, how ridiculous is that?

We do everything in our power to resist recognizing the humanity of Jesus. Jesus is the Word made flesh. Not God masquerading as a human being, but God really as a human being. God incarnate. That means that not just parts of Jesus were human. We can’t say that he was human in body, but not in mind. He was ALL human.

So, there are some things that are true about the human experience that had to be true for Jesus, too. And until we can see just how human Jesus really was, we will never understand him. Part of what it means to be human is that you are a product of your environment. Your social context influences the way you view the world around you. If you grow up in a world that believes only your people are God’s people, that’s the way you will see things. Jesus grew up in such a world. Like any human being, he was influenced by his environment.

But another part of what it means to be human is that what we learn through the world around us can change. In fact, growing up into big boys and girls means growing beyond the way you always thought things had to be. Think about your own life. If you’re an adult, do you still see the world the same way you did when you were a kid? Or, if you’re still in your younger years, do you still see the world the same way you did when you were in preschool? We grow. Throughout our lives. Sometimes it unfolds so gradually that we hardly realize it’s happening to us, unless we think back to the way we saw things twenty years ago and the way we see them now. And sometimes, we experience something in our lives that can change us overnight. It’s like a moment of clarity when the veil is lifted and we wonder how we could ever have seen it any other way. That’s a part of the human experience. It’s the way God made us. We grow. We are all a work in progress. And Jesus was as human as we are. He grew along the way. His understanding of his mission evolved. His mind expanded.

This little confrontation with a Gentile mother who wouldn’t take no for an answer must have been one of those life-changing moments for Jesus. He had considered his ministry exclusive to the Jews. Yes, he had healed the sick, touched the untouchable, reached out to those on the fringes of society. But they were all Jews. He hadn’t gone far enough. It took a desperate woman to challenge him on it. And because Jesus was one with God, he was not threatened by this Gentile woman’s words. He was open to being transformed. He could see that he had been wrong. And he changed his mind. That’s the way it works for a human being who is perfect in his completeness.

So, we don’t need to make excuses for Jesus. We can face the truth about his humanity and recognize that he did humanity better than anyone. Does that mean he was never wrong? Of course not. Was he ever a bigot? Yes. He was human. Just like us, he could be too narrow in his thinking. Just like us, he needed to be jarred into expanding his mind. And, just like us, once his mind was expanded, it could never again return to its original size.

Mixing Religion and Politics

"You don’t mix religion and politics." That’s something we’ve probably all heard, and maybe we’ve been among those who’ve said it. I know for myself, I usually understand that to mean, you can’t force your religious views on everyone else by making them a part of your political agenda. And, of course, I’m only concerned about it when the religious views I believe someone is mixing with politics are different from my own.

Whether we like it or not, the political season is upon us. In fact, it’s descending upon us this week in Charlotte in a very vivid way. We’ve been preparing for it in the Queen City much like people living on the coast brace for a hurricane. Some have evacuated, others are battening down the hatches and will be holing up in their homes for the duration, while a few brave souls (a.k.a. crazy people) will be reveling in the gale force winds coming from the center of our city.

The lectionary reading for this week, from the first chapter of James, comes to us at a perfect time as we enter into these historic days for Charlotte, not to mention the final months before a big presidential election. I think I can safely say that, in the spirit of James, as God’s people, it is high time for us to mix religion and politics.

Before you leave your house in the morning, do you look at yourself in the mirror? Do you carefully wipe away all the crust that collected in the corners of your eyes while you were sleeping? Do you check to see that you don’t still have some of your breakfast on your face or between your teeth? Do you make sure that little piece of hair in the back isn’t sticking up like Dennis the Menace? Well, imagine yourself looking in the mirror again. That’s what James asks you to do. Only this time, look beyond your face and your hair and your clothing. Who is that person you see looking back at you? Who are you, really? Imagine if you could see yourself from a God’s-eye view. God, whom James describes as “the Father of lights, from whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” James wants us to look in the mirror and be reminded that we’re the first fruits of all God's creatures. That person looking back at you is someone who belongs to God and is set aside for God’s purpose. That changes what you see, doesn’t it?

When we do that and we’re reminded of who we really are from a God’s-eye view -- when we really do that, it’s going to transform us. In the things we believe, to be sure. But more importantly, in the things we do. The Christian faith is more than a series of truth-claims limited to what we think and what we express with our words. For James, talk is cheap. What counts is the way faith actually plays out in your life. Your deeds need to be consistent with your words. Faith without actions to back it up is absolutely meaningless.

It’s so easy to forget this when we get caught up in the culture around us, isn’t it? These are challenging times for us as God’s people. A few verses from the first chapter of James especially sting. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” and then the part that says, “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”

Have you noticed how folks are ready to pounce on every word one of our presidential candidates utters, just waiting for a chink in the armor to appear so they can quickly plunge their knives into the vulnerable spot while they have the chance to do as much damage as possible? Have you noticed how much we seem to relish deriding those who say stupid things? Like the guy who referred to “legitimate rape.” Immediately, all people in his party were guilty by association and condemned. Have you noticed how we’re always looking for the worst possible interpretation of everything the opposing party does? Why is that? Because they have become the enemy. Worse than the enemy, really. We have demonized those who disagree with us. We put them right up there with Satan and we’ve got to fight against them or all that we care about will be lost. It’s scary when we get to that point. And I’m afraid that’s where we are.

Certainly, it's good to feel passionately about your convictions. But when it means targeting anyone who disagrees with you as an enemy who must be fought and destroyed, you’re in trouble. It’s dangerous. Especially for that person you see in the mirror.

Take some time to read the first chapter of James and think about whether your actions might be a manifestation of the one who taught us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness…. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”

We’re being challenged in these politically charged days to not only talk the talk, but to walk the walk. No, we can’t control how the world around us will proceed in the weeks ahead. But we can control ourselves. Will we allow ourselves to get sucked up into the angry rhetoric all around us? Will we close our ears to anyone who disagrees with us? Will we allow fear and anger to lead us? Or will we be able to look in the mirror, reminding ourselves that we are God’s first fruits among all his creatures and conduct ourselves accordingly? Yes, I’m suggesting that this is the time for us to mix religion and politics in the best possible way.

The Uncle Al Show and my first public humiliation

Appearing on “The Uncle Al Show” was a pretty big deal for a kid growing up in the Cincinnati area during the 1950’s. Every morning, I tuned in to one of the three channels we got on our black-and-white T.V. to spend time with my best friend, Uncle Al. He was always smiling, just so darn glad to see us out- there- in-T.V.-land, wearing a straw hat with a band around it that matched his striped blazer. The best thing about Uncle Al was that he played the accordion and sang wonderful songs that I now suspect he wrote himself. I can still sing them to this day. Songs like “Up, up, up! Climb up Mr. Sun!” and “Put your toys away, don’t delay. Help your mommy have a happy day.” Uncle Al was married to a woman named Captain Windy, who was on the show, too. She wore a shiny skirt and a cape. Every day she made a fabulous entrance by flying in. This, of course, explained the cape.

When I was five years old and my cousin Judy was six, we got to appear on the Uncle Al show. It was the first time that I can remember ever feeling disillusioned, as well as my first public humiliation. The disillusionment came when I actually met Uncle Al up close and personal. He was a cranky guy who didn’t really seem to like kids. Then, when the cameras started rolling, he was all smiles. Of course, his on-stage little friends played along, including me. The biggest disappointment to me, though, was Captain Windy. I was waiting to see her fly in, but it never happened. Uncle Al announced her entrance, and I heard the flying music, but then she just came walking over to us. Oh well.

The Uncle Al Show had sponsors like: Skippy peanut butter, Kahn’s wieners, Snyder’s pretzels, and Butternut bread. On the show, Uncle Al did all the commercials himself and he involved selected children in them. For example, Captain Windy would spread the Skippy peanut butter on a saltine cracker about five inches high and cram it into a kid’s mouth and then Uncle Al asked that kid a question, which of course the kid couldn’t answer because his mouth was full of sticky, gooey stuff. And we would all laugh at the kid. It was so funny. Every day it happened. And every day it was funny.

My cousin Judy was selected for the pretzel commercial. She got to swing on a giant pretzel, which I thought was way cool. That’s the commercial I wanted. But the one I appeared in was the Butternut bread commercial. I was well aware of how it went. A kid would stand and hold her arms out as Uncle Al piled loaves of bread in them so high that you couldn’t see her face any more. And, invariably, it was too much for the poor kid, and all the bread came tumbling to the floor. Well, I was bound and determined that wasn’t going to happen to me. I was going to be the first kid on Uncle Al to hold that bread in my arms no matter how high the stack got.

I stood with my arms out straight and steady while Uncle Al piled up the tower of bread. Higher and higher it went, and I didn’t move. When the last loaf was in place, I was so proud of myself. I did it! But my glory was short-lived. Uncle Al reached under my arms and punched up. The result of this unfair interference, which the cameras obviously didn’t capture, was an avalanche of bread loaves. Everyone laughed, and I was mortified!

This was certainly not the last time I experienced a public humiliation, but just a preview of coming attractions. I still get that same feeling sometimes after I’ve preached a sermon, in fact. I feel like I’ve put myself out there and made an ass of myself and I’ll never be able to show my face in public again. But then, of course, I do. It’s a lesson I first learned from Uncle Al. Along with the realization that: smiles are often deceptive, I should never trust a man wearing a straw hat, and I will never be able to fly, not even if I wear a really nice cape.

Reflections of a Schmuck

I wonder how different my life would be if I weren’t so doggone trusting. There have been times when I thought it’s a good thing to trust other people, but today, I’m not so sure.

I got burned. I trusted someone completely, only to learn that this person had lied, cheated and stolen from me. Now, I know that there are people who do such things. And I’m realistic enough to acknowledge that this is fairly common behavior in our world. So, I can accept the fact that a person could do such despicable things. I get that. But that it would be THIS person, someone I was so sure I could trust, leaves me feeling like my guts have been tossed into a blender.

No, this isn’t the first time in my life when I’ve trusted someone who betrayed that trust. It's happened a lot. And I’m starting to think I may have a problem in that regard. I may be too trusting. When I first meet someone, I’m always cautious. But once I let my guard down, I’m ripe for the picking. I’ve never thought of myself as naïve, but maybe I am. I do know that when I trust, I trust completely. It’s hard for me to trust someone a little.

Why am I such an easy mark? Some of it, I suspect, has to do with an overpowering need I have to be loved. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but I’ve grown to accept it as a part of who I am. I need to be loved so much that I have been known to allow that need to over-ride my better judgment. So I tried to overlook the unfaithfulness of my first husband. And I denied the obvious deceit of a second one. How could I have been so stupid? I feared the consequences of facing the truth because it meant losing the love I so desperately needed. The thought of that was more painful to me than facing the truth and taking care of my own best interests.

Another reason why it’s so easy for me to trust those who aren’t trustworthy is that I make the mistake of thinking other people are like me when it comes to honesty. There is not a dishonest bone in my body. (Okay, maybe there are a few tendons and ligaments, but none of the major bones.) If I lie, I get physically ill. I mean that literally. And I assume that other people are the same way. This is especially true with those I become close to. I know that I would never deceive them, so I can’t imagine that they would ever deceive me.

Oh, let’s face it. I’m a schmuck, plain and simple. I try to convince myself that trusting others is admirable by going to a poem that’s attributed to Mother Teresa: “People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway….” I'm not convinced today. And then I think of that wonderful quote from Anne Frank, “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” Yes, what a wonderful perspective on life! But now I’m remembering that this was something she wrote in her diary before some of those really-good-at-heart people drug her off to a concentration camp and killed her.

Despite the fact that I know in my head why I have reason to hope, sometimes despair gets the best of me and threatens to crush my spirit. The only thing I can do to combat it is offer deepest thanks for all the trustworthy people God has sent to be a part of my life’s journey. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to go on. Yes, this is one of those days when I’m convinced that people who are “really good at heart” are truly the exception in this world, but that just makes them all the more valuable to me.

Hankerin'

Do you ever get a hankerin’ for something, but you’re not quite sure what it is? Every once in a while, this happens to me. It’s usually associated with stress. I’m a stress eater. And sometimes I get this notion that if I can just find what it is I’m hankerin’ for, I’m going to feel a whole lot better -- better about my situation, my life, myself.

So, I climb into my car and head for the supermarket. Then I get down to business. I walk up and down the aisles. In the produce I stop and imagine myself eating some fat, juicy grapes. Is that what I’m hankerin’ for? Nope. I go to the chips and think about how satisfying it would be to crunch away on something salty. But will that do it for me? Nope. I make my way to my favorite section of the grocery store, the cookie aisle. And I stop by the Nutter Butters. Is this what I’m hankerin’ for? Nope. Next comes the freezer section. Frozen Yogurt. Is that it? Nope. I make my way through the entire store, hoping that something will jump out and grab me because I have no idea what I’m looking for. Just something to ease this hankerin’ I’m feeling inside.

There are times when I go through this whole routine and leave the store empty-handed. Nothing seems to do it for me. But most often, I do walk away with something, usually something that isn’t at all good for me. Then as soon as I get into the car I tear it open and start in.

Do you ever do that? Do you ever feel yourself hankerin’ for something and you don’t know what it is? It might not be food. It might be that you’re hankerin’ for a drink. Or you’re hankerin’ to buy something new. Or you’re hankerin’ for an adventure. Or you’re hankerin’ for a special person in your life. Or you’re hankerin’ for something to entertain you.

Whatever it is, hankerin’ can be pretty stressful in itself. Especially when you aren’t quite sure what you’re hankerin’ for. It leaves everything in your life feeling out of whack. Something’s just not right. Nothing quite fits. You have this dis-ease that keeps gnawing at you and you don’t know what to do about it.

We humans must have a natural tendency to hanker. The children of Israel were terrible hankerers. In the Exodus story, they have what presents itself as a food crisis. But, in reality, it’s a faith crisis. God has just delivered them from the hands of the Egyptians, but all they can think about is the food they used to have back in the days when they lived in Egypt. Never mind the fact that they were slaves, and miserable. They seemed to forget about all that. So, instead of being thankful for the amazing blessings within their grasp, they hanker for what they can’t have. God hears their hankerin’ and gives them manna for bread and quail for meat. It may not be exactly what they want, but it’s exactly what they need.

This story from Exodus seems to foreshadow a story that we read in John’s gospel. Jesus has just fed a hungry crowd of 5000+ people. And now, they’re chasing him down. It wasn’t enough for them. They’re hankerin’ for something more. Jesus knows that. And he realizes that they don’t even know what it is they’re hankerin’ for.

“You’re looking for me because I fed you,” he says. “But there’s so much more I can give you. That bread and fish that I fed you will only satisfy you for so long, and then you’re going to be hungry again. You’re going to spend the rest of your life hankerin’ for something you don’t have until you seek the true bread from heaven.”

Well, that sounds pretty good to them. “Okay, we’ll take it. Give it to us, please.”

“Here’s the thing,” Jesus tells them. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. “

Jesus warns his followers, then and now, that we’d best be mindful about what we’re hankerin’ for. Because pert near everything in this world that we convince ourselves we can’t live without has little to do with really living. Not the living that God calls us to be a part of.

The kinds of things we spend our lives pursuing are usually things that have a shelf life. The only thing that doesn’t have a shelf life, Jesus reminds us, is the relationship we have with God. And until we live into that reality, we’re going to continue wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles at the supermarket looking for just the thing that will satisfy our longing. And we fail to notice is that everything we think might satisfy us is stamped with an expiration date.

St. Augustine once said that our hearts will always be restless until they find their rest in God. Life doesn’t have to be an endless quest to find the one thing that will satisfy our hankerin’. God is there all along, waiting to give us all that we need: to be complete, to be at peace, to be content.

When I get a hankerin’ and go to Harris Teeter, hoping to find just the right thing to satisfy me, I usually end up with junk food that I stuff into my face. And in no time at all, I’m feeling worse than I did before, both physically and emotionally. And now I’m hankerin’ again. Because junk food isn’t what I needed.

It makes me wonder about all the other kinds of junk food we consume in an effort to satisfy our longing. Our junk food may be drugs, alcohol, sex, work, fast cars, running, our children, a reckless pursuit of adrenaline rushes, a relentless quest for perfection or control or the approval of others. There are so many things we can convince ourselves we need to satisfy our hankerin’.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? Why do we have such a tendency to hanker for junk food when we could be savoring the bread of life?

The Day After They Lined Up for Chicken

So much has already been said about boycotting Chick-Fil-A that I don’t need to say a whole lot about it here. At first I was among those who didn’t quite get why many of my friends were so offended by some old man who made homophobic statements. After all, we hear these things all the time. Doesn’t the guy have as much right to express his opinion as I do? But then when I learned about the millions of dollars Chick-Fil-A contributes to organizations that are working to deny the rights of gay folks, I realized that every time I buy a chicken sandwich there, I am contributing to those organizations, as well. So, I won’t be doing that any more. It’s as simple as that for me.

Now, the morning after “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day”, I am having strong feelings about what I witnessed yesterday. I can understand why some people would not see this as I do; we disagree about the issue of homosexuality. So, of course, it wouldn’t bother them to continue patronizing Chick-Fil-A. That’s fine. I won’t fault them for it. But what I saw yesterday went beyond that. There were people who made a point of going to Chick-Fil-A, standing in line, having their pictures taken and boasting about it. Some of them ate there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Of course, the name of Jesus was invoked while they were doing it. Somehow this became an expression of “Christianity.” And it makes me sick to my stomach.

I often hear Christians who are opposed to what they refer to as the homosexual “lifestyle” (implying that sexual orientation is a choice) saying that they “love the sinner, but hate the sin.” They will insist that they do not hate people who are gay. In fact they love them. What they’re trying to do is save them. Again, I don’t agree with them. But I can respect what they’re saying.

So tell me, please, how what happened yesterday could be construed as loving toward LGBT people? Those who made a big deal out of eating at Chick-Fil-A yesterday were spitting in the faces of a lot of people I love. It grieves my soul to see how quickly people jump on the hate bandwagon. I wonder if they really think about the ones they are hurting. But then, that's the way I tend to see these things. It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about who's being harmed. And a lot of people were harmed yesterday. There was nothing loving about eating at Chick-Fil-A and telling gay people you don’t give a damn about them.

I want to say “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” but I’m having trouble with that right now.