Hey, Hey, Hey

I am in Week 4 of Weight Watchers. Actually, I'm not a paying customer; I'm just along for the ride with Laura (though she hardly needs it, and I desperately do). Last week wasn't a good week - Noah's godparents sent home pasta twice (pasta with spaghetti sauce - she puts Italian sausages in her spaghetti sauce, mind you - and another night shrimp fettuccine Alfredo). But in spite of it, I've still lost 13 pounds in the first three weeks. I hope to do better this week, but I find I'm running headlong into my appetite.

Appetite is a bad thought. I don't have to eat as I do because I'm hungry. The reasons I eat as I do have nothing to do with my physical need or even the comfort of a spoiled stomach. Gluttony is a spiritual problem: It's finding solace in a means for communion with God, rather than in communion with God. And even the skinnies among us share in it. You don't have to look like me to struggle with gluttony. Saint John Climacus says,

"In our self-criticism we must refer particularly to the stomach, and indeed I wonder if anyone breaks free of this mistress before he dies.

Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed, and crammed, it wails about its hunger. ... Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time. A stuffed belly produces fornication, while a mortified stomach leads to purity. The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.

- The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 14, On Gluttony (my emphases)

And Saint Isaac of Syria says, "It is just as shameful for lovers of the flesh and the belly to search out spiritual things as it is for a harlot to discourse on chastity." This is what I love about the Church Fathers. When you need a good punch in the gut, they're happy to oblige. And most of us need the breath knocked out of us, every now and then, for our salvation. The added blessing of the Church Fathers is that it feels less personal when the guy's been dead for a thousand years. But back to the quote. Here I am, I write on spiritual disciplines, on ascesis, and I am a catechist at my parish and then Saint Isaac of Syria comes along and says that I'm no better than a harlot giving discourses on chastity. So where does that leave me? It makes me feel like saying, I can't do this - I'm a hypocrite. But that's not the answer - I don't think. The better answer, perhaps, is to recognize my hypocrisy, the reality of my situation - I am unqualified, but in my weakness, perhaps the Holy Spirit can reach someone.

Meanwhile I'm going forward with this business of taming my stomach and trying to squeeze more life out of my lifetime. I want to be an old man, surrounded by my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I don't want to swing to the other extreme, into a cult of the body, but I do want to take my appetite by the horns and find peace through the struggle.

Pray for me.

(The photo is from Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.)

If You Can't Say Something Nice

As I was taking time to compose a post (bits and pieces over the past three days), I came across an excerpt from a book that always strikes a resonant chord: St. John Climacus's (+650) The Ladder of Perfection. Today's excerpt came from the Daily Gospel that I receive, well, daily in my inbox. It stopped my pencil. (Perhaps an old dog can learn a new trick or two.) And this refrain constantly comes to the forefront: Do not judge. Do not judge. Do not judge.

Here's the quote:

I have heard some people speak ill of their neighbour and have rebuked them. To defend themselves, these evildoers have answered: "We are saying these things out of charity and concern!" However, I have replied: "Stop practising a charity like that or you will be accusing of deceit the one who said: 'Whoever slanders his neighbour in secret, him will I destroy,' (Ps 101[100],5). If you love him – as you claim – pray for him in secret and don't make a mock of the man. This is the way of loving that pleases the Lord; don't lose sight of it and you will take the greatest care not to judge sinners. Judas was of the number of the apostles and the thief was among the criminals but, in an instant, what an astonishing change! ..."

So reply to anyone who speaks evil of his neighbor to you: "Stop, brother! I myself fall into the most serious faults every day; how could I now condemn this man?" Thus you will make a twofold gain: you will heal yourself and heal your neighbor. Not judging is a shortcut towards the forgiveness of sins, if this saying is true: "Do not judge and you will not be judged" ... Some people have committed grave faults in the sight of everyone but, in secret, have carried out the greatest acts of virtue. Thus their detractors have been mistaken by focussing only on the smoke without seeing the sun ...

Those who are hastily censorious and severe fall into this delusion because they don't keep the memory and constant care of their own sins before them ... Judging others is shamelessly to usurp a divine prerogative; condemning them is to bring down our own souls ... Just as a good grape-picker eats the grapes that are ripe and does not pick those that are green, so a watchful and sensible soul carefully takes note of all the virtues he sees in others; but it is the stupid man who keeps an eye on their faults and failings.

I am a stupid man. I hate judgmentalism in others because I see it so clearly in me. Lord, have mercy.

Pray for me, St. John Climacus, that I might love truly, forgive all, and judge none.