The eCrozier

Some humans ain’t human, some humans ain’t kind
You open up their hearts and here’s what you find
A few frozen pizzas, some ice cubes with hair
A broken Popsicle, you don’t wanna go there
– John Prine

I’ll leave the debate about the humanity of some humans to another time. I’m more concerned here with what the legendary John Prine believes we’ll discover inside some human hearts: “frozen pizzas, ice cubes with hair,” and “a broken popsicle.” As always with his anthropological observations, Mr. Prine is amazingly insightful.

In terms of connecting food to our hearts, I think it’s safe to say the relationship is complicated. In the developed world, particularly in western culture, we’ve never before had such a wide variety of food options available to us, at least to those who have the discretionary income to make those choices. We’re capable of appreciating wholesome, delicious food one minute and then wolf down a bag of potato chips the next. We can delight in the freshest of oysters and then ruin that delight by washing them down with a Budweiser (yes, I’m a beer snob…among my other sins). Take the potato, for example. It’s one of God’s greatest creations. It’s full of nutrients. If history is accurate, it kept the Irish alive for a generation or two. But what do we do with the potato? We slice it up, cover it with salt and grease, deep fry it so there’s absolutely nothing nutritious left in it, and then sell it to churches for their youth group meetings. If you don’t believe there’s a Devil, then that alone should convince you.

But even our irregular taste in food isn’t my primary concern. I’m more concerned with what happens when food becomes a type of religious devotion for us. This occurs in two ways. First, we can become obsessed with eating the most admirable foods (kale salad anyone?) thinking it’ll show others just how righteous we are. Or second, we can treat eating “right” with a misplaced religious zeal. Doctors even have coined a term for this. It’s called “orthorexia nervosa,” a psychological obsession that causes a person to restrict their food intake to particular foods, believing doing so will be the only way they’ll be healthy and happy. But like its twin disorder, anorexia, orthorexia leads to depression and death, if it isn’t addressed. These are both forms of self-sanctification. Both hold that if we just get our food choices right, then we’ll be happy and fulfilled.

Such efforts disorder our lives because they believe a necessity (in this case food) will do something it can’t possibly accomplish (make us whole). Now I’m not suggesting for a minute food is unimportant. We have a significant hunger problem in this country, particularly among children. Plus, eating a healthy diet is a way for us to be good stewards of God’s gift of our bodies (OK, even having some potato chips on occasion). But we should be really wary of what food can become for us. Like with so many other things, we can ascribe a worth to it beyond due measure. If that happens, then we’ll be sorely disappointed when it can’t deliver what we hoped for.

+Scott