I Am What I “Eat”

We’ve all heard our mothers, or maybe doctors, warn us, “You are what you eat!” I know it’s true, too, because a few years ago I started eating really healthy and running and suddenly lost 20 pounds. Amazing!

But this post isn’t going to be about healthy eating, running or the evils of fast food, although I could write a lot about those things and fast food is very evil. No, no. Today I want to write about what I consume in other ways: through my eyes and my ears.

It’s true that if I eat twinkies I will start looking like a twinky–white, round, squishy and oily.  The same is true about what my heart and my mind “eat.” What I consume when I read, listen to the radio or watch movies shapes the way I perceive the world.  Over time my reading and listening habits shape my values, my  understanding and even my knowledge of the world. On the one hand this is a wonderful thing.  Reading can make me wise, radio can give me knowledge, and movies can expand my imagination.  Yet on the other hand it can be dangerous.

It all depends on what I put in my mind. Jesus cautioned his followers about this very issue, 2,000 some years ago.  When traveling and teaching in parables (simple stories that convey spiritual or moral truths) Jesus often ended a teaching with, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, “If you are willing, heed my words!” In the gospel of Mark chapter four Jesus is recorded saying, “Be careful what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you (v.24).”   Upon reading these words I wrote this in my notebook: “What I listen to could be what I read, see, hear–all I take in. Maybe whatever teaching I consider important will become all I can receive.”  By my measure it will be measured to me.

It’s surprising that my reading in Mark coincided with some rather different books I’ve been reading lately.  My usual reading appetite is for something humorous, unique and morally uplifting.  Therefore, one of my very favorite authors is Alexander McCall Smith of the famed No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries, and Professor Von Igelfeld.  It doesn’t get any better than these, and the man’s a genius. But last week sometime I decided to branch out.  Try something new.  So I picked up the book One for the Money by Janet Evanovich.

I tentatively waded in, not sure what Evanovich was serving for dinner.  One page in I realized it was bawdy, violent, funny and sometimes downright sad. I might as well tell you I read and enjoyed the whole thing, then immediately felt guilty. It’s not the kind of thing I’m used to reading, and it made me evaluate what and why I read. I don’t just read for entertainment, I read for amusement and to better myself.

Writers used to see it as their duty to inspire people to greatness. To guide people to a higher plane of knowledge, understanding, morality or imagination. Now it seems a majority of our modern, secular writers simply appeal to our baser instincts. First, maybe because they like the baser instincts, and second, because it brings in more book sales.

I for one, aspire to be a writer reaching for something higher, better. I don’t think we have to wallow in the muck of our current culture. C.S. Lewis once commented that the crass nature of modern writing was due to the breakdown of culture and I agree with him. Yes, horrible things happen in the world, but we are responsible for the way we write about them and why.

All this is to say, I think I’m learning something about what I “eat.” I want to be bright, moral, creative and optimistic. Maybe I should be careful what I listen to.  I am what I read.

P.S. I want to punctuate this post by sharing an anecdote from a date with my husband last night.  It was Brian’s birthday so we headed out to dinner and a movie while friends watched Hudson. Filled with yummy pizza from the California Pizza Kitchen we cozied up in our chairs for the new batman movie, The Dark Knight. Sharing the theater was a family of four with two little children.  Young children, probably under five years old.  I had to listen to those poor, terrified children cry out every time something violent, loud or gruesome happened which was about every 30 seconds.  I loved the movie but I thought, great, this is how parents breed the next generation of psychopaths.