health and health

It's the curse of modern life. We eat too much and don't take enough exercise to burn off the calories. ... If this trend continues, by 2050 nine out of 10 adults and two thirds of all children will be overweight or obese. ... Obesity is the biggest health challenge we face. British Health secretary Alan Johnson

Over 2.4 million Canadians suffer from diabetes and up to six million more have prediabetes. If not treated one quarter of the six million will have diabetes within three to five years. In the UK it is predicted that by 2050 , 90 percent of adults will be obese. Physical health is linked to spiritual health. Laziness is both a physical and a spiritual one. Spiritual gluttony and physical gluttony are real problems, in fact sin.

In an earlier posting I pointed to John Cassian who mentioned gluttony as a problem for monks but spiritual gluttony is also an issue. St. John of the Cross, in The Dark Night of the Soul tackles spiritual gluttony. He explains that it is the disposition of those who, in prayer and other faith acts are always in search of sweetness, which we might call the emotional high. Spiritual gluttony occurs when people do spiritual or religious things because of some consolation or delight they get from the activity and so the pleasure becomes the end of the action instead of God. The greatest issue comes with novelty and newer is better thinking because the assumption is that the new thing gives more pleasure than the old.

There is also a very real danger of spiritual obesity or spiritual diabetes for this generation. In the obsession of worship and prayer with emotional highs and pleasure and it's associative newer is better we are in danger of being consumed by our own sugaryness. Richard Foster suggests in Freedom of Simplicity rather than going into worship in a place one rather should bring worship into life. "Have you ever tried to live out your day so that you fill each moment with the thought of God? I do not mean you cease normal activity. Oh No! Just the opposite. bring God into each activity, infusing it with divine Light." We need to take both our physical and spiritual lives seriously. Even eating can become a spiritual activity, one of worship.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sister, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Rom 12:1