Food

The Frustrating War Within

4 Comments / Food, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Every six months, I go through the medical surveillance that tracks the signs of health and/or disease in my body. Last Wednesday, I underwent the CT scan, and six hours later my oncologist called to tell me, “It looks great! No changes! All is well.” When all my testing is done next week, I fully expect the all-clear and won’t have to think about cancer for six months, heart disease for maybe five years, skin cancer for a year, colon cancer for five years, female cancers for two years, yada, yada . . . But there is one dumb thing […]

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Colossians 2:16–23: You’re Not Good Enough Unless You __________

2 Comments / Church, Colossians, Food, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Church in Exile / By /

After a sugar fast during the month of January and a rather decadent self-indulgence on Super Bowl Sunday, today began my annual discipline of calorie cutting. I have had a life-long preoccupation with food, which I do not consider a virtue but more a matter of childhood conditioning. As Erma Bombeck wrote once, “I am not a glutton; I am an explorer of food.” No, honestly, I really am a glutton and I am not proud of it and pray regularly for deliverance from this one of the seven deadly sins. In the meantime, I am vulnerable to the promises

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Self-Maintenance and the Life I’d Rather Lead

1 Comment / Food, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Frustration has risen lately, as I struggle to manage a different life than I had been leading in BC days. There are so many things I must do everyday in the category of “self-maintenance,” it feels like a full-time job. Whereas I used to track progress in maybe seven concurrent work projects, my new routine includes management of: Medications, which are taken at 7 a.m., 7 p.m., and at bedtime. Some of these meds are my old standbys for “before cancer” (BC) conditions, but the new batch addresses the aftermath of lung cancer and surgery. Two different inhalers (with different

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Taste and See That the Lord Is Good!

Leave a Comment / Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, Food, Lung Cancer, Personal, Sermon Illustrations, Spiritual Disciplines, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

I have often said that God’s biggest competition in my life was food. Of the seven deadly sins, gluttony has been at the top of the list too many times. So you can imagine how I anticipate the possibility of losing taste while undergoing chemotherapy with Cisplatin. Any medicine with the word “platinum” in the name can’t be good for a foodie like me. I have been wondering when this taste bud transformation would take place, because it hasn’t yet on Day 9 of treatment. Tonight, I celebrated that fact by enjoying the perfect dinner a friend brought to our

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Reflections on Kenya and Uganda: Raise the Roof!

Leave a Comment / Food, Kenya & Uganda, Leadership and Spirituality, People, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

Our second full day in Uganda was dedicated to exploring ministries to children at risk in both Makindye (a district of Kampala) and a rural village. Surprises awaited us, all of them delightful and encouraging! First stop was to visit St. Mbuga Primary School adjacent to Gospel Messengers Church in Kampala at 8 a.m. Six hundred twenty-five students and about twenty faculty were gathered in the central patio of the school, arranged by class and therefore by age and size, from the teeny-tinys to the right all the way to the upper grades to the left. They greeted Andy and

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Reflections on Kenya & Uganda: Getting Our Feet Dirty—Part II

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“Have you been on a farm/ranch/pasture? Have you been in close proximity of livestock?” The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Form is reinforced by a Customs Agent’s direct question. When I answer “Yes,” he writes a big red “A” on my form and points me to the agricultural inspection line at San Francisco International Airport. The agents want to see the shoes we wore in Kenya and Uganda. Inspecting the dirt in the tread, they took two pairs and gave them an antiseptic bath. Yes, we got our feet dirty in equatorial East Africa. My thoughts drift to our first

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Good Days and Bad Days

7 Comments / Food, It All Started in the Garden, Leadership and Spirituality, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

This morning a Facebook friend posted his status: “Today is a good day.” Having just come off a bad day myself, the simplicity of his statement caught my attention and begged for reflection. Sunday for me was the sort of day Judith Viorst described in her class children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Well, I had one. Two events cast their deep shadows on this week’s Sabbath. The first occurred during worship and the second at home late in the day. On this particular week, my participation in worship was musical. The choir director

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