While it seems simple, we all have to eat. Fasting from certain foods has been a part of my spiritual practice. What is more dangerous that I have been encountering, in the past few years as I have been living differently in society, is the some people are completely obsessed with food and will control others with it in American society. While it is not surprising to me that people would do such a thing, it is surprising to me that businesses wouldn't just refuse service to those that they didn't want in their restaurants. The number one thing that people have challenged about my life since I started my kippah/skullcap/headcovering (a medieval multiple religion) discipline is where and what I eat.
Now, I am larger person. I have never been skinny person. I am not built to be a skinny person, I have highly documented medical conditions that don't allow me to be a skinny person, and I like food. But, it is only really since I started wearing a recognizable head-covering that people in public wouldn't give me the same courtesy in restaurants and other places to choose my own food or even be there. For example, I usually don't eat pork. I love pizza and pretzels. So, when Little Ceasars' menu showed up with a pretzel crust, I was in line and ready to order it. When I got to the front of the line, I was immediately told that they couldn't make a pretzel crust pizza without pepperoni. I know how to make a pizza. Why?
Well, I know why. In time, I was confronted about ordering only cheese pizzas
. Let me point this out. I do -- cheese on bread. Cheese on bread is of God. Every culture has a form of cheese on bread recipes. It seemed over time that whenever I went into certain stores that I was either refused service in one way or that I needed to eat their understanding of what I should order -- air or pork. I love cheese on bread.
The real reason was either: 1) No Jews allowed or 2) Lose weight. The second experience I had was where I used to teach. I actually had someone tell me from behind my back that if he had a gun he would shoot me immediately as I stood in line for lunch. The real issue in that people are more concerned with their understanding of my weight and what I am eating rather than fasting from arrogance and disciplining their spiritual and emotional need to control the people around them.
Seriously, be calm. There is really no reason to control the people around us by their food. We live in America. It is a privilege of the first world to control others by rice, beans, and dare I write it -- cheese on bread. It is more spiritual and far more important to care that the person sitting next to us in our pews, bus stops, and classrooms have been fed rather than worrying about how it looks to our own egos. People have to eat. People with expendable incomes
get to eat well. I know people who pride themselves on living on oatmeal and Ramen noodles because it is cheap. It is unhealthy not to allow people to eat. Both body and soul require nourishment. The saddest part of this is that human beings use scripture, God, and their own sexism not to allow people to be able to have nourishment in their lives. Today, while talking about dogs, I heard a man say, he won't let her eat." While I was walking home, I thought about the Garden of Eden. God created everything and then placed a seemingly arbitrary rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While Adam and Eve were there, the serpent encouraged them to eat. So, they did. The problem was not with the food they ate. The problem was that God received lies from Adam and Eve about what they had been doing. They had been in communion with another teacher. They had followed another's teaching.
God is a jealous God. Even so, he repented of His jealous anger by placing a rainbow in the sky. He is still a jealous God, but He matured as His children did. He learned not to banish out of anger. Instead, He communes and breaks bread with his disciples. I hope it was really cheesy bread. :)
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