Spiritual Eating Disorders pt.1- Anorexia

Let’s stop talking about politics for a little bit. Like for a few months. I’m sure we’ll get to it again by the time the election rolls around so if you REALLY like that sort of thing then have no fear, but personally I think politics are a symptom, and I don’t want to treat symptoms, I want to treat the illness.

When we think about sin, the comparison of illness is often used. We say sin is like a virus, a sickness that eats away at us, but I can’t help but think there are many people out there with this sickness who look perfectly well. When you see someone with a cold it is painfully obvious; they talk funny, their faces are all droopy, and their noses are red and drippy. But people who are fatally carrying the burden of sin often walk around with big smiles on their faces.

terrifying.

It reminds me of some people I knew in High School who had life-threatening illnesses and nobody noticed. They walk around all smile-y every day, they were well liked (popular if you will), and they seemed as healthy as everyone else, if not healthier. But they struggled day in and day out with anorexia, bulimia, over-dieting and emotional eating. They were these strange enigmas that wandered the halls, who seemed as if they were completely oblivious of the fact that they were bearing the weight of these terminal illnesses… but then again weren’t we all? In High School so many of us were oblivious to our sin and how badly it hurt us.

So maybe sin isn’t like a disease, it’s more like an eating disorder, laying just under the surface and controlling so much of our lives.

How many times have you heard people say “I just need to be fed” and they’re actually talking about going to church, reading the Bible, or listening to wise counsel.

Chicken Soup for the Soul? More like Hometown Buffet!
amIright?

We hear preachers talk about how much sin is in our churches and in our lives and we don’t see it, but we all have spiritual eating disorders.

So that’s the intro, it’s gonna be a four week series. This week we’re talking about spiritual anorexia, next week will be in the same vein, with spiritual bulimia. The following week, I’ll write about the other end of the spectrum, spiritual obesity, and the last week will be on spiritual dieting. If you guys are willing to stick with this for another 4 weeks then I am too! Go team!

Anorexia is probably the first thing you think of when it comes to eating disorders and it’s probably the most common spiritual eating disorder as well. Anorexia turns food into the enemy. Food is like this toxin that you take in that makes you fatter and uglier and all around not as good as the cool kids, so you just avoid it. In the mind of the anorexic it’s healthier to not eat than to eat anything at all. For those who aren’t anorexic this is almost impossible to understand. Food IS nutrition. I can’t wake up in the morning without a bowl of cereal to give me energy and if I skip lunch I feel my body getting angry and slowing down.

So many people cut out spirituality from their lives. They go out of their way to avoid it. They don’t walk into churches and they certainly don’t talk about religion at the dinner table or at work. It’s weird to me seeing as how my whole life seems to be dedicated to spirituality. I was talking with my students today about Christmas and all of the Christmas traditions we have, and ultimately the conversation got to the fact that spirituality runs through everything. The story of Christ and what he has called us to is like a blanket over everything else. That’s how I see spirituality. It’s coursing through each action we take and everything we see along the way.

Spiritual anorexia doesn't just deny that fact, but vilifies it. You hear the term “militant atheist” or “evangelical atheist” used a lot, and maybe you even think about Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens who are authors that advocate atheism. There was a time in college when I really wanted to logically argue with those types of people. I wanted to convince them they were wrong, but then I realized they have this disorder. They see spirituality as unhealthy for the soul, or they don’t believe there is a soul at all. What ground is there to stand on to have that argument? Can you sit across from an anorexic and explain to them that food is good? You can, but that won’t stop them from vilifying it.

unless you're Russel Crowe.

But the trick is that it’s not just atheists. I can think of a number of people I went to Bible College with that got to this same point with spirituality. They explained away the miraculous, which isn’t to say they didn’t believe it, but they simply thought of it as common things happening in an uncommon way. They stop seeing the glory of God all around us and started seeing the glory of God as the unattainable goal somewhere off in the distance, certainly not found in our churches and maybe hidden somewhere deep  in the word of God. They weren’t taking it in. At first it was just not eating a good meal and then it became vilifying spirituality. They laughed at those who still found God in contemporary Christian culture; they thought it was weird when people actually bowed their heads in prayer. It ate away at them because every form of spirituality they saw wasn’t good enough or perfect so they never took it in.

serious picture.

One of the saddest images is someone who is less than 100 lbs because of anorexia. They look like walking skeletons, with sunken eyes and thinning hair. They’ve deprived themselves of the things they need to live and now are just barely surviving. It kills me to see the people who are like that spiritually. They can be surrounded by things that will nourish them and restore life and yet they turn away from it disgusted. An abundance of nourishment wasted on those sick with vanity, sick with self-deprecation. We sit at the father’s table; let us celebrate with a joyous feast.