Destination Discipline

I am a creature of habit. Some people say, “I’m stuck in a rut” as if that were a bad thing. But as for me, I like my ruts long and deep. Ruts are easy. And that is why we ate homemade pizza for 6 days in a row last week. I was worn out (life is busy—not to mention mentally challenging) and everybody likes pizza. Believe it or not, I get tired of my children complaining about the healthy dinners I make.

Last week it was Mom for the win! And we might have had pizza for dinner every night forever except that my husband put his foot down. He might have said something like, “Where’s the beef?” but I can’t remember. Mainly, he made it clear the reign of pizza was over. And that is when Taco week began. (Okay, it was really only 3 days of tacos, but I digress)

Before I learned how to make “healthy” pizza, I would never have imagined I could eat pizza for 6 days in a row and not gain weight. And it’s not just because I exercise a lot. (Fyi…one can lose weight via diet alone) This morning while I was jogging, I was thinking about my routines and how safe they make me feel. I was also thinking about how wonderful it is that I spent so many years cultivating healthy habits. I don’t say all of this to brag about how awesome I am. Much to the contrary. I am simply saying that I am glad some good came out of the diet and exercise torture I went through to get to a place where I no longer weigh 310 pounds. I’ll be candid…I never, ever want to go through that again. Twice is enough!
But there was a time in my life when I could not have imagined being excited to wake up early to exercise and I am very glad that has become my reality. Still, there are some days—like today—when I consider my “new reality” and chuckle.

I have recently been a part of a Facebook Group of women(mostly moms) who are striving to live a healthy lifestyle. I didn’t purposely sign up for the group. It happened quite by accident. The owner of the group is a Facebook friend and she added me to a team after I “liked” one of her posts about forming two teams who compete for the most miles walked in a week. Today I noticed that my name was at the top of team 2 and I wondered if she did that because she knew I would be faithful to keep my team on track.

It then occurred to me that 6 short years ago I was struggling to walk up one hill, much less 6 miles of hills(which is now my comfortable “rut”). As I was taking my “proof of exercise” picture, it occurred to me how strange my situation is. How did the girl who could barely walk around one block get to a place where she eats “healthy pizza” and walks 6 miles several times a week, and is such a sure-fire exercise bet that she gets put at the top of the roster for an workout challenge? (disclaimer—I might be reading too much into the list leader thing, but please don’t burst my bubble and tell me it was a coincidence)

In 1984, the band Chicago released a song called, “Hard habit to break”. In it the broken-hearted man laments the loss of someone he took for granted. When Peter Cetera sings, “I’m addicted to you! You’re a hard habit to break”, he could be singing my song. After all, trading in my Snickers bars for dried apricots took some “getting used to”. (if you feel so inclined, read my posts about sugar addiction)

There was a time when I couldn’t envision my life without plates of cookies or chocolate stashed in my drawers at work. Now I stop at tables on the side of the road for free summer squash (while my children whine, “Mom, what are you doing?!”) I ride my bike for hours just so I can soak in the fresh air and sunshine. I make whole wheat pizza crust heaped high with veggies instead of pepperoni and sausage. And truthfully, I don’t miss the heaps of sugary/carb laden crap. And I don’t like to imagine returning to a life where I’m not able to move freely.

So many times I watch friends and acquaintances lose large amounts of weight only to gain it back. I’ve done it myself—mostly because I am a creature of habit. If I eat ice cream one day, I want it the next day too. And that is why it has been so important that I stay as sugar-free as possible. Eliminating sugar reduces the cravings by circumventing the insulin loop that causes me to want more. This is especially important because increasing exercise causes me to get hungry more often. By practicing healthy habits, I have created an environment where I can maintain my weight loss over time.

Now, 6 years into my journey, I find it really challenging to put unhealthy foods into my mouth. And when people question my resolve, I have no problem telling them why I abstain. And if people feel offended by my “rut”, so be it.

It takes time to learn about how to properly nourish the body. It takes time to develop an exercise routine. Much like wearing down a footpath into the woods requires day after day of stomping down the weeds, living a healthy lifestyle does not happen overnight. So if you are reading this and you have been disheartened over past failures… if you feel like you don’t have the strength or stamina to make another start… if you think healthy people are annoying people(sometimes I do too!)… think again. Try again. Because I am living proof that healthy habits are hard to break. And even though I really like the Chicago song that grieves the burden of a habit that is hard to let go of, I am happy to follow it up with the Robert Plant fiesta that is, “Addicted to Love”. Because the thing is, I am “addicted to love” -ing myself enough to stop hurting myself with food my food addiction.

Evil is all around us. It is in the air we breathe(pollution), the entertainment we participate in(television/movies/internet), and in our daily commute(pesky drivers!). It is also prevalent in the natural world. This morning I gazed out of the window to see a tiny song sparrow feeding a large brown bird. The large brown bird flapped its wings and cried as if to say, “More food! I’m hungry!” In the moment I thought it was adorable. But then it occurred to me that something “fowl” was afoot. I watched as the song sparrow became clearly exasperated and eventually flew away. The large brown bird squawked and followed. In that moment it occurred to me that this wasn’t a cute Disney moment. The song sparrow wasn’t feeding the bird because it felt sorry for it, or because it had taken an orphan under “its wing”. (More puns, sorry). The song sparrow had been duped, and that to me feels like an egregious evil.

You see, Cowbirds(the big brown bird) don’t raise their own young. They are a parasitic breed. They find and stalk the nests of other birds and lay their eggs in them while the parent is away. Sometimes, they even destroy the eggs of the parent bird to ensure their egg isn’t rejected. I felt a little sick when I read that because I hadn’t seen any baby song sparrows in the aforementioned scenario. In my mind, I saw the mother Cowbird shoving the Song Sparrow eggs out of the nest in lieu of her own, and then fly away to raid the nest some other unfortunate bird. This is how Cowbird’s reproduce; by killing the young of others and tricking the parents into raising them as their own. If this isn’t evil I don’t know what is. In fact, if this happened in the human kingdom I’m pretty sure there would be a 60 Minutes special dedicated to the ensuing investigation. And here I’ve always thought The Ugly Duckling was a beautiful story about love and acceptance when in reality it’s a story of a poor mother duck that’s been the victim of a con artist goose.

How am I supposed to respond to such evil? My dad said he is tempted to shoot the Cowbird and stop the cycle. But killing the innocent bird seems wrong too. After all, the baby is not responsible for its parent’s behavior. Still, the behavior of the breed itself seems evil(in my humble opinion), and if Cowbirds didn’t act that way the species would die out, wouldn’t it?

What is the answer to such a conundrum when the evil is genetic?

I have been thinking a lot about the current state of our world and my place in it. Superficially, I feel the temptation to condemn or condone current events via rogue comments on social media. No matter which stance I take I am certain to offend someone, and so therefore I frequently refrain. Better to stay silent and be considered wise than to speak out loud and confirm I’m a fool. Still, my heart aches over what I consider to be the many great evils that are so prevalent in our society. The tender-hearted side of me cries out for a solution. I want justice. I want peace. But neither justice nor peace is anywhere to be found. Not in our government. Not in my neighborhood. Not in my own sin-infected heart.

As I rode my bike this morning, my thoughts cried out for an answer to the unspeakable evil in my own life and I felt the talons of despair draw blood. While I may appear rational and sane most of the time, in private I simmer constantly with cravings, resentments, and fears. As I compared all of the good things I want to do to help others against the backdrop of my own broken and flawed body, I found myself screaming into the void. All I could think was this, “I am utterly helpless. I need someone to save me.”

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking, “That Margaret sure has a lot of problems but I’ve got life all figured out.” Okay, so maybe this blog isn’t for you. You are hereby excused. If that’s not your stance, I entreat you to keep reading.

Most of my life I have formed opinions based on my personal experiences and they are, in general, in line with the way most people think. Bullying is wrong. Stealing is bad. Child porn is wicked. I generally form these opinions based on the culture around me and how they define good and evil. But as time wears away the sharp edges of my black/white perspective, I find that my opinion of myself has evolved over time. Whereas I used to think of myself as a pretty good person, I now consider that I’m more like the Cowbird.

I have decried people I know for blatant racism, but I myself have hated certain black people over the years. This was especially true for the grade school bully who took great delight in tormenting me(and many others).

I have hated certain church people who didn’t meet my (selfish) expectations. So much so that for a while I walked away from my faith.

I have preached abstinence but I have not been abstinent.

I have pursued relationships based on what I could gain from them rather than what I could give.

I have taken solace with food and leaned on the crutch of addiction with relative ease. And then I have looked at others and thought they were lazy and fat.

So when I consider the Cowbird, I am grieved. Because no matter how much I try to do what is right, no matter how diligent I am to keep my thoughts innocent and pure, no matter how patient and loving and kind I fight to be, at the end of the day, I still seek to serve myself and shove my neighbors eggs out of his nest so I can lay my own.

All of these thoughts drive me to the cross. It is the only place of solace for me. There I consider Christian(of Pilgrim’s Progress) and the peace and freedom he felt as he laid down his burden and watched it roll away. And when my thoughts are as dark and twisty as they are today, Jesus is my only recompense.

Evil is real. It is in the face of the pedophile, the thirst of the addict, and my own festering heart. So when my dark days stretch out and I find myself at the end of my effort, I cry out, “Somebody save me!” And for some reason I will never understand, Jesus always does. He delivers me from evil. Today if you recognize the evil in your own heart and are brave enough to ask, He will save you too.

I have recently encountered a series of quite unfortunate events. And to be honest, I was actually okay with all the bad stuff happening until this morning, when I caught a whiff of the most recent “accident”. My son called me at work and described to me the demise(by way of my boxer dog and some gutter installation men) of the new laptop I recently purchased. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the raindrop that caused the dam to burst, the clot that caused the heart to “attack”. It is the third device I’ve lost this month(my phone, my tablet and now my laptop). And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, I tripped and smacked my face on the granite counter-top on Saturday – after losing my beloved dog, Gwen. If there is a lottery for bad luck, I seem to have hit the jackpot!

As I was dressing for work this morning, I realized I would not be able to wear makeup because my face is too tender. I looked in the mirror and considered the bruised up old hag staring back at me, and then I headed off to work. Because seriously, what else am I going to do? Pouting won’t make the purple smudges under my eyes go away. At least, it hasn’t worked so far.

Even after the facial “incident” I wasn’t too worried about my appearance because I was too busy being excited about a family reunion on Sunday where I was planning to see relatives I haven’t seen in many years. As we chatted and caught up on life events, I felt such an enormous sense of belonging. My cousins are dealing with all the same issues I face every day, and not one of them looked at me and said, “Hey, Hag! I can’t talk to you because you’re too difficult to look at.” And I am so thankful for that. At a different time in my life I would have felt really self-conscious about my injuries.
But there was one conversation that really bugged me. One of my cousins expressed to me her dismay over having gained weight since the last time we saw each other. As I listened to her explain her situation, I was sincerely perplexed by how best to respond. Because honestly, the very last thing I considered important was how much she weighed. I was just so dang happy to see her! In fact, I can think of about a million other things I wanted to know about; namely her job, her father, and her angora bunny rabbit(I used to have one). I wanted to put on hand on her shoulder and kindly say, “I love you—the whole you. And I think you are just as beautiful today as you were when we were kids.”

Image isn’t everything.

Our bodies do not define who we are.

Much the same way our bodily “defects” don’t define our personhood, “bad luck” doesn’t determine our personhood. There is an old saying, “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.” I would postulate that a truer statement has never been written. When we experience unfortunate events, many times those closest to us “abandon ship.” Suddenly they are too busy to return our phone calls or associate with us. Maybe they even deem us deserving of the bad circumstances due to “poor choices”. Or as my husband likes to say, “If you would just follow the proper procedures, I wouldn’t have to tell you ‘I told you so’ all the time when things go wrong.” Oy!

I am very sad to write that I have lost several good friends over the years because they didn’t agree with decisions I’ve made. Losing a close friend is quite painful, especially when they won’t even tell you why they are walking away. For this reason, I try very hard not to complain when life gets me down. Candidly, I am absolutely terrified the people I love and cherish will abandon me if I tell them how I really feel.

Have we become a culture so focused on image that we can’t see through to the heart of people we claim to love? Have we become so accustomed to prosperity that we can’t bear with the one who is losing everything? Are we so consumed with scratching our pleasure itch that we neglect the starving souls in our communities?

A dear friend of mine is going through a particularly bad string of luck(much worse than mine). She has lost her job and her home, and for that reason she has begun to sell or give away most of her possessions. She has confided in me that her deepest pain is dealing with the children she loves, all of whom seem to think that she is either crazy or just plain stupid. And I grieve because I know how she feels. Because I too have suffered that kind of judgment and spent many tears into my pillow in that regard.

Maybe that is why Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12-13)

So today, I was thinking about my own string of pain, of bad luck, of sorrow and disappointments. And the thing I decided was this; I resolved not to have a pity party. No matter how much I wanted to sing, “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” I’m not gonna. Instead, I’m going to stop worrying about how much my stuff cost and how much I’m going to spend to replace it, and I’ll consider someone who is in real need. I’m going to stop thinking about my poor face and consider those who have permanent scars and live daily with the downcast eyes and pitiful stares of strangers. And I’m going to seek ways to help other people. Because I think that’s what Jesus would do. And then I’m going to consider my friends who are having a tough time and I have decided that regardless of what I think about their decisions, I’m going to love them where they are for who they are, and not who I think they should be. And it’s actually a lot easier to write than it is to live.

And then I’m going to salvage what I can of my poor, broken laptop. And I’m not even going to grieve it because it’s just a thing. And people are far more important and meaningful.

Oh, and self-pity is dumb.