From Safari…….
Choices: Chips, pop, and remote, or Fruit, water, and weights. What we do and eat affects our health. The National Institute on Health, states that 1 in 3 adults (30.7%) are overweight; more than 2 in 5 adults (42.4%) have obesity; 1 in 11 adults (9.2%) have severe obesity. Medical expenditures attributed to obesity may be as high as $170 billion annually. The chips, pop, and remote symbolize unhealthy choices in food, drink, and activity. Whereas the fruit, water, and weights symbolize healthy choices.
What we do and consume also affects our spiritual health. Recently this story was shared with me. An Apache Elder sat down the young ones in circle around the fire one night, and said to them, “There is a fight going on inside me. Right now as I speak. It is a terrible deadly battle, between two wolves. One wolf represents, fear, anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, and ego. The other stands for peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, friendship, generosity, truth and faith. This same fight is going on inside you. And every other person too.”
As the sparks flew up from the fire into the night sky, the young ones thought about the Elder’s words. Then one asked the old man, “Which wolf will win?” The Elder replied simply, “The one you feed.” The Apache elder echoes the wisdom found in the letter to the Ephesians. Where we read today remove from your lives, bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, all malice. Instead be kind, compassionate, forgiving, be imitators of God.
What we consume affects our spiritual health. The books we read, the movies we watch, the websites we visit, the music we listen to, the people we hang around us either embrace fear, anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, and ego --- all those qualities or behaviors which are self centered. Or foster peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, friendship, generosity, truth and faith. s fear, anger, envy or attitudes and practices of kindness, compassion - -- qualities and behaviors which are other centered. Jesus invites us to partake of the bread of life, the bread that promises us everlasting life. The bread of life is God’s word --- whoever listens and learns from the Father, Christ’s Body and Blood, spiritual writers, the sacraments, from others in the Christian community.
Each of us know how difficult it is to remain healthy in our choices. How often have you said, this is my last bag of chips, my last visit to this website, my last time reading this material, my last time degrading a group of people. For as much as we know something is wrong, we are drawn to it, it brings satisfaction and yet also guilt. As the Apache elder noted, the wolf that wins is the one that is fed.
To continually make healthy choices we need to acknowledge that we are powerless and that only God can help us. We need to consciously each and every day surrender our lives to God and to living the will of God.
Fr. Ron
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