I have a challenge for you. Ready?
Let me first introduce an acronym:
CALM
Celebrate and Connect with ourselves.
Celebrate and Connect with others.
Be Anchored in God (AKA Good Orderly
Direction).
And eat Loving Meals.
My invitation is for us to see each meal as an opportunity to break bread with someone spiritually evolved whom you esteem highly, someone from ancient times, someone like Jesus.
My invitation is for you to share the same love with yourself that this person would have for you whether it’s Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, or another great teacher from the past.
For this next part, do you remember those plastic wrist bands which began the plastic wrist band craze? WWJD? What Would Jesus Do?
Well, here’s a new version:
WWJE
What Would Jesus Eat?
Consider the following—and feel free to insert the name of another great teacher from the past:
Would Jesus eat a sweet potato or a bag of Doritos?
Would he eat air-popped, or stove-popped, popcorn with pure butter and sea salt or a bag of the microwaved kind?
Would he eat a cake lovingly and painstakingly made from scratch with farm-raised ingredients or would he eat a Duncan Hines boxed cake, a sheet cake from BJ’s?
Would he eat a salad laced with fake bacon bits, factory-farmed cheese, croutons prepared with soybean oil and unnamed spices—all covered with dressing made from canola oil and high fructose corn syrup? Or one blessed with olive oil and vinegar, seeds for crunch, real cheese, and—if he ate bacon—real bacon?
Would Jesus eat cows which were raised knee-deep in their own manure? Chickens fed with the leavings from the floors of the cowshed or grains which humans wouldn’t eat? Or would he eat animals that were raised on grass and foods they naturally—and historically—eat?
Would he choose clear plastic bottles of vegetable oil—would he even know vegetables could be mined for oil?—or would he use olives, avocados, coconuts, and grass-fed butter for his fats?
WWJE?
We have a daunting array of choices around us. Popping out at every turn promising us instant health at the same time as promising our tongues a tasty treat, promising our brains a dopamine hit each time our hand goes back into the bag of Doritos.
Jesus wasn’t faced with this same dilemma. He certainly had other dilemmas, but not these.
Would he have eaten a date, a fig, some berries—or devoured a bag of Halloween candy?
Offered the candy I make up that he would have tried it. And I also make up he would have had one or two pieces during the whole season. Not every day.
But he wasn’t confronted with it each and every day. He wasn’t confronted with heart, lung, brain-damaging foods 24/7/365. And so that is why I am inviting us to break bread with Jesus at each of our next meals this holiday season.
Let’s eat like Jesus this season. Let’s represent him, make him proud, as it were.
Let’s be CALM and
Celebrate and Connect with ourselves. Celebrate and Connect with others. Be
Anchored in God (Good Orderly Direction) only all the time.
And eat Loving Meals.
Let’s eat food which was raised with love and which will love our bodies.
I offer another C, as well: Let’s be Compassionate towards ourselves when we do slip up—just as Jesus would be.
So here’s my challenge: Make yourself a life-sized Jesus to sit with you at each meal and tell him how many meals a week you will eat as he would. Usually we have 21 a week. Will you go for 21 or work up to that? Start with one loving meal a day? Tell Jesus and write it on your calendar.
I’m kidding about the life-sized Jesus, but I do invite you to set a place for your teacher at the table. Each meal. Or as many meals as you can. Don’t be weird. I don’t necessarily recommend taking him to a restaurant with you.
We get to share our meals with Jesus. He wouldn’t go through a drive-through, would he? He would make food ahead of time to carry with himself. He would wait until he got home to eat.
And he would also shower you with forgiveness if you did go through a fast food place. Once. He would be concerned for your body after that though.
There’s a difference between his forgiveness and his blessing, am I right?
So let’s take on this challenge. Start tomorrow at breakfast and go through January 4.
I also challenge you to enrol a partner for accountability and let me know you’re doing it. I’ll be posting about it in my Creative Wellness Facebook group. We’ll support each other in there—I want to hear your stories.
Now we just need a name for this challenge. “Meals with Jesus,” “Breaking Bread with Jesus,” WWJE, WW[insert name of spiritual guide here]E, or, perhaps, Eating with Good Orderly Direction.
What suggestions do you have?
I look forward to hearing them.
Blessings on your day. Blessings on your food. And blessings on you as we embark on this challenge.
Let’s have it happen.
And if you want support, reach out—I’m here for you!
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