| | Blargh. That's how I feel about the layer of fat that is slowly but steadily forming around my middle. I will soon post pictures of all the yumness in which I've been partaking here in HK. The first week here, when my parents were still here, we were eating out for pretty much every meal. Thankfully, now that they've gone, I'm eating at home (at my relo's apt) more. But for the first week...there was not really a moment when I felt hungry. We would go from breakfast to lunch to afternoon tea (which is not the simple British tea & biscuits, but HK-style butter & syrup on toast with a bowl of noodles, and maybe a BBQ chicken wing with a big cup of milk or lemon tea) to dinner to dessert. There just wasn't enough time in between to digest all the food that had been consumed at the previous meal. Freakin' living like hobbits.
I'm a big believer in physical, earthly things being a shadow or representation of the spiritual. So when I think about physical hunger, I think about spiritual hunger.
It's quite common to hear the word "hunger" thrown around in Christian culture (I wonder if it's the same in Jewish, Muslim, or other religious cultures),...wanting to be hungry, hungering for God's word, etc. Do you find it weird that we would WANT to be hungry? The way that I hear it used makes it seem like being hungry is a good thing. That's probably not an accurate way of understanding 'hunger.' Isn't hunger just a feeling that signals us to eat something? It's not really about wanting or not wanting to be hungry. It's weird to ask God, "Make us hungry." If anything, it should be more like, "God, help me to realise when I'm hungry." Sometimes, if I'm in my zone (whether it's reading, working, playing, etc), I won't realise that I'm hungry. Or I'll ignore the hunger. But it's there - I just won't do anything about it.
There is some good to being hungry - it makes regular food taste even better. But this also could be 'dangerous,' because our senses are distorted by extreme hunger. Mmmm, maybe that's taking the analogy too far. Nevermind, I won't get into this.
But going back to spiritual hunger...and more importantly, spiritual FOOD. What in the world is spiritual food? Well, a quote that I have loved for a long while...
"In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
It doesn't outrightly say what spiritual food is. But it pretty clearly tells us what spiritual food is NOT. It is not simply the elementary truths of God's word. The writer suggests that solid food is about righteous actions, distinguishing good from evil in this confusing mess that is called life.
So it's not about just being hungry. Perhaps "feed me" doesn't quite have the same ring when it comes to Christian songs, but I think it's equally important. And actually, I don't think it's "feed me," it's about being aware that we need to eat, and then eating. The food is in front of us. The challenges and problems in our lives, the news we read, the TV we watch, the music we listen to. That's there for us to 'eat,' 'digest,' and 'excrete.' The stuff that is good nourishes and grows our spirit. The junk should get flushed down the toilet. The spiritual toilet.
Physical food is for our body to have energy to move. Maybe spiritual food is for the spiritual Body to have energy to move?
Mmmmm spiritual dimsum...
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| | Posted 11/21/2008 11:07 PM - 42 Views - 4 eProps - 4 comments
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