Meanwhile, Jen at Conversion Diary gives us something else to chew on regarding detachment, food, health, pregnancy, and weight loss as a motivator (maybe the "wrong" motivator for many of us).
Since the weight loss ended for me a couple of months ago, I've been at loose ends spiritually, and I'm certain that the two are connected. A friend told me this morning, about her own spiritual life, "I need a jump start;" I practically had to restrain myself from grabbing her about the shoulders and wailing "ME TOO!"
I wonder if it's as simple as this: I had a big problem, a spiritual obstacle that consumed my attention, and now that it's been mostly lifted from me, the next problem has fallen into its place in line and I don't know how to attack it or even where to start or what the problem is. It's like…
…no, don't say it.
Spiritual debugging.
Yeah, okay, like that.
Occam's razor suggests that I've merely replaced gluttony with more than a dash of good old-fashioned vanity. Not necessarily the most serious of vices, and one that I plan to shake off eventually… after I am done shopping for all my nice new clothes, and admiring myself in them in the mirror. The winter wardrobe is done, but I'm not quite done yet. Spring is just around the corner, after all.
Did I say that? This is Minnesota.
And no, even though spiritual dry spells seem to be going around like influenza this season, that's not my problem. "Dry spell" tends to refer to the situation where even one's most fervent prayers seem to be met with no response, no peace, no consolation. The case where one is apparently too preoccupied or self-important to find time in one's day to pray at all, well, that's rather a different sort of problem.
At least I have learned by now that a bowl of Cocoa Krispies will certainly NOT help. I also suspect that the answer is to be found in doing something rather than in thinking about what to do. Which probably means it's high time I ended this post.
[Editing note. Years and years later, I wish I’d done a better job distinguishing gluttony from other problems with food, like clinical eating disorders and other kinds of compulsiveness.
I want to emphasize that, whereas I identified some behaviors in myself that probably qualified as self-centered gluttony in the technical sense, I am not and never have been qualified to make that distinction for anyone else.
I hope to add some commentary to all the posts that have this problem as I find the time to review them. Here’s a more recent post where I acknowledge some of the problematic material I wrote and set new ground rules for myself going forward.]
bearing blog 