I've recently become friends with a few crunchy people. People who buy their food from Amish farmers, who grind their own wheat, who have chickens and goats in their backyards. People who talk about “cow sharing” and microbes in the earth as though they were something desirable.
Now, I have never been one to get into this sort of thing. I have historically been one to flaunt my lowbrow eating habits: my frequenting of Taco Bell and McDonalds, my proud consumption of certain cheap food items, like Ramen noodles.
But there is an inevitable rubbing-off that takes place when you hang around people, and, of course, having children does change the way you look at things.
So it is with this shifting lens, this slightly-altered consciousness, that I walked the food aisle of Dollar General the other day, looking for chicken broth. I was amazed at what I saw: so much food that wasn't food at all. Food that was broken-down, fragmented, extracted, re-configured, re-packaged.
It might more accurately be called “Food Product.” or “Food-ish.” Perhaps “Food-esque.”
Thanks to technology, we are adept at tearing up perfectly good stuff nature created. Then we realize our mistake and try desperately to put back in what we took out.
Hence, we have Wonder Bread, fortified with vitamins.
Similarly, technology has removed physical labor from much of our work. So now we get to go to the gym and run on a treadmill for an hour.
Just look at the ways that technology has broken down and repackaged our relationships: social media is, arguably, the junk-food-ification of friendship. Though, undoubtedly, some good interactions happen via social media, too often they are sort of the white bread version—missing the bran and roughage and the nutrients we could actually use. No wonder people are relationally and mentally sick and lonely.
Even more than whole foods, we are in need of whole relationships. Face-to-face. We need to spend enough time with people to get a little annoyed by them. To be challenged by their different values and points of view and ways of looking at things. To suffer a little until we learn to stop “seek[ing] to be understood” and begin “seek[ing] to understand,” to quote a prayer spuriously attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.
So much more important than our use of foods and technology is our spiritual nourishment. When Jesus was fasting in the desert, and the devil tempted Him to turn stones into bread, He responded, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
I remember a letter my husband wrote me, back when we were pen pals: he said he loved the Bible because “it is so unmanageable.” Human beings have attempted to manage it—to break it down, fragment it, reconfigure it—to systematize it, explain it away—even to destroy it.
But—to quote a song I learned at Baptist school as a kid--
“The Bible stands though the hills may tumble
It will firmly stand though the earth may crumble
I will plant my feet on its firm foundation
For the Bible stands.”
Yes, the Bible is hard to understand at times. We have to grapple with it. It confronts our modern values and sensibilities. It confronts our selfishness, our self-righteousness.
People have twisted it, weaponized it, misused it.
But what if—in spite of all this—God's Word—in its entirety—is the thing we need more than anything else? What if it was designed—in its entirety—for our nourishment, our edification?
Jesus certainly thought so.
Too late in life I have recognized that so many of my sorrows and regrets could have been avoided if I had only “taken heed” to God's Word.
But even now, I turn to His word and find the nourishment my soul desperately needs: I find His forgiveness, His comfort, His correction.
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Tremendous. You put your finger on the core of the problem. Some years ago I spent a week in China
in mostly rural areas, and I don't think I ate one bite of anything that contained a preservative. When I came back to the States I was leaping out of bed in the morning with energy to beat the band. Until about a week later my old westernized eating habits kicked back in and I was dragging myself through the day again. (Suffice it to say I could give you a run for your money at Taco Bell haha.)