Food for Thought

          I started running a few years ago.  My husbabnd (an exhuberently vocal non-runner) asks me all the time.  Why run?  What's the point?  If someone's not chasing you why do it?  In high school, college, even in our first years of marriage I wouldn't have been able to answer him.  Now.  Well, now I have three kids.  Now, as clearly communicated in a previous post, I don't poop alone.  Now, the thought of waking up early, of being the first one up, of feeling the brisk morning air wash over me, of feeling my laces tightend firmly across the tops of my feet is so very alluring.  I confess, I never love the first minutes of a run.   Nothing feels quite right.  Certain joints and muscles like to rear thier ugly head and throw down a silent protest at thier use.   The water bottle I find too distracting to hold in my hand is tucked firmly in the back of my sports bra and it's cold, too cold for comfort.   No sweat has been broken, and I ain't no girly girl I like to  break a sweat.   I don't wake up early for those first minutes.  I wake up early for that feeling.  The feeling you get in the middle of the run, the heart of the run.  When your limbs are warmed up, you got, as my Dad likes to say, "a good sweat going" and you've settled into your pace.   It's like connecting with the  ball right on the sweet spot of the bat, it's like capping of the night with the rich and savorty taste of chocolate when you've been craaving it all day, it's like running your tongue across your teeth after you just got your braces off (I'm reminiscing here about 8th grade) and marvelling at thier smoothness.  It just feels good and right.   My fellow runners, you know what I'm talking about.  Everyone else, well, you're just plain missing out.
             So this year for Lent ( I will take time now to define Lent for any of my readers, which assumes I actually have readers other than my family who feel forced to read this, who are not familiar with the term) Lent is a six week or so period of time leading up to Easter in the Christian Calandar meant for the believer to prepare, repent, pray, and fast etc. in prepration for Holy Week.   This year for Lent, I gave up processed foods.  I too, among many others in my community, chose to read "Seven" by Jen Hatmaker and I too, like many others had my life ruined.  Included in the destruction of my life as I know it, but not limited too, was the knowledge that I might have been eating more disodium phosphate and maltodextrin (what are those you ask?  Not sure you want to know) than cleary is a good idea.  Feeling guilt for not only feeding myself these chemicals but also my children I decided I would swear off any food item which contained ingredients that I could not read and could not define.  
             Lets be honest here, I was worried.  I love wheat thins and because I don't drink wine I like a good package of fruit snacks to wind down at the end of the day.    Since both of those have either enriched flour or high fructose corn syrup in them (clearly these are not items grown on a tree or in the groud somewhere) they were out.  I was going to have to cook more from scratch.  Before I continue, you should know I just started cooking, like legit doing meal plans on Sunday and cooking all week, about three years ago.  My mom does not cook.  The lady is Martha Stewart, without the incarceration part, of course.  She owns more power tools than Ty from "Home Makeover," she can sew underwear and curtains and pretty much anything inbetween (she made Michael the most amazing Tumnus costume five years ago, like I said anything), and she can feng shui a room up like nobody's business.  She is, however, quite terrible in the kitchen.  Needless to say, I am a self taught cook.  So I was little worried about these six weeks of Lent not just for me but for my poor sweet little family forced on this journey with me.
             Easter is over now.   I can say with confidence that we all survived.  In fact, we more than survived.  I feel ridiculously good.  Like I can scale walls and swim underwater for hours on end.  Okay, I can't do these things.  But this is how good I feel.  I am at my lowest weight ever.  In my whole life, lowest ever.  I can make homemade refried beans, tomato bisque soup, whole wheat pizza dough, homemade pasta sauce, crepes, and I am just getting started here folks.  I think the success of the processed food fast can be summed up by the follwoing occurance:  (this is last night as Bible Study is starting)
 Me: "You bought "white" (yes this is what I called it) pasta?  You know I like whole weat."  Meanwhile I stare, horrified, at what I believe to be pasta filled with dun dun dun....enriched flour.  Michael responds quickly trying to appease the beast before I get real worked up.  "It's organic I swear.  I eye him curiously and skeptically.  He senses my un-belief. "Really, it's all real food ingredients.  You can check."   Jen Hatmaker, you have created a monster.
             Here's what's really suprised me.  I like to cook things from scratch.  I actually like mixing the flour with yeast, water, and salt to create the most perfect ball of dough you've ever seen.   There is something so satisfying about chopping the onions,  the peppers, the zuchini into even and equal pieces.  Something soothing about the motion of the knife as it slides over the vegetables.  Something about the sound it makes as it slices through and then touches down on the cutting board.  I guess it's like the motion of my legs as they rotate up and down, up and down, falling into the most calming and comfortable routine.  It's like the sound my feet make on the pavement.  The repetition brings with it a sense of securuity.  It's like the heart of the run.  It's just feels good and right.
             All of a sudden I feel myself changing.   Welsey offers me a taste of his lollipop (I have to say yes to that cute little face) and, to my dismay, it tastes contrived and discusting.   And I am a sweets girl.  I, quite suprisingly, choose to take extra time, which I do not have, in the kaos of a feeding frenzied lunch to make myself an egg white omlette with green peppers, onion, and cheese.  Yum.   What is happening to me?  I am turning into an obnoxious foodie.   The kind I have often snubbed and thought, "Its just food.  Get over yourself."  And here I am having a food orgasim over my perfectly constructed precious omlette.
           Then, I realize, what started as a simple fast.   I mean, really, I just gave up processed food, it's not like I saved a starving village or cured a life threatening disease or anything.  Turns into something deeper.  "My coucil is this; Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spririt.  Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness." (Gal. 5:16 Mes.)   That word there is interesting.  Feed.  Maybe it's not just about the food I choose to put in my body but more so about the food I choose to put into my soul.   "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."  Maybe the routine that my physical body desires, the continous motion of my legs and the sound my feet make as they hit the concrete and the motion of my hand sliding the knife throught the vegetables.  Maybe my Spirit longs for the same.   My Spirit needs to keep in step with His Spirit.   Jesus said is this way, "Walk with me and work with me- watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  
            All of a sudden I feel myself changing.  Learning to keep in step, learning a new rhythm, a new routine, an unforced rhythm.   Just like my taste in food is changing so are my spirit's desires.    I'm craving new things.  I had to set my phone alarm to sound every three or so hours just to remember to pray.  But someday I won't need the alarm.  I need an army of supportive and God-fearing women to keep me accountable in my Scripture memorization but maybe someday it will just be second nature.   I need this blog and the knowledge that someone wants to read what I wrote to force me to open my Bible, to focus my mind on His words.   Someday these will all be an unforced rhythm.  But for now, I'm changing.  I choose an apple over fruit snacks and my Youversion app over my facebook app.  And, people, that's progress.

P.S. Michael came up with the title of this post.  It's pretty good.  So I had to give him credit.