Love, life, and all that

Love
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Koine Greek had multiple words for love. I won’t go into each one, but (as some of you no doubt know) they had words for friendship, erotic love, and family love, plus one adopted by Christians to refer to self-sacrificing love. They are all good, and I am thankful to give and receive all those kinds of love.

Life
I tend not to think of giving thanks for life, for much the same reason that when I look at a painting it is not the canvas itself that I admire, but the art which used the canvas as its foundation. But since I am not a spectator looking on at life but a participant depending every moment on life to continue, I have reason to have much greater appreciation for life than for a blank canvas.

Both life and a blank canvas offer possibilities. So long as there is life, there are so many wonderful things that can happen or that I can do. Of course there are also a great many terrible things that could happen, but in every one there is also the opportunity to meet it with joy knowing that I can grow spiritually from it. And there are so many simple joys that I may not notice if I am looking for bigger ones – but that when I think of life itself as a blessing I may begin to see.

My favorite musical is “Fiddler on the Roof,” and in it one of my favorite songs (though there are so many good ones, it’s hard to say which is best) is “L’Chaim.” This is the traditional Jewish toast, “To life!” My best friend in college taught me the words, and my favorite lines were these:

Our great men have written words of
Wisdom to be used
When hardship must be faced;
Life obliges us with hardship
So the words of wisdom
shouldn’t go to waste.

When I finally saw the movie, I was surprised and disappointed that those words weren’t in it. I found a website with the lyrics that does include those lines – but also someone’s comments that it isn’t the version from either the play or the movie. So what is it from? Good lines, anyway.

Libraries
Reasons I like libraries:

• I can’t afford to buy all the books I read.
• Even if I could afford the books, I can’t afford all the bookshelves it would take to hold them – or rooms to hold the bookshelves!
• Every town I have lived in – even very small ones – has had a library. Not every town has a bookstore.
• Bookstores carry primarily recently published books, as well as perennial bestsellers. Libraries have a much wider range of books from the past several decades (though they are less likely to have the most recently published books).
• As in a bookstore, I can browse the shelves of the library looking for something interesting even when I have nothing particular in mind. And at the library, I don’t have to worry about making sure a book still looks brand new after I browse through it.
• Libraries have a great kids section where my son can read or play while I read or browse – and I don’t have to worry about whether the books look even close to new when he is done.
• Libraries have programs on interesting topics (I recently attended one about autism).
• Libraries have librarians – whose job is to help people find information, not just books.
• Libraries are (mostly) quiet.

Lost weight
One year ago today I stopped overeating and started an online course on being set free from overeating. I did expect to lose some weight, but what I especially wanted was to be free of the constant desire to eat stuff I knew I shouldn’t. I would sit at my desk at work thinking of the candy jar one of my co-workers keeps filled with bite-size chocolatey treats for those of us who work in this area. I would have dessert just about every night (usually ice cream) and feel deprived if there were none – or if I had chosen to skip it for the sake of both health and money.

I no longer fantasized about food to the extent I had a couple decades earlier, but it still seemed to rule my life. Whenever I heard/read about submitting all of life to God, I felt guilty that even when I tried, food kept getting in the way. I had tried many times to develop better habits (always with prayer – I knew I couldn’t do it on my own), and sometimes succeeded for a time, but then the urge to enjoy the pleasure of my favorite junk foods would grow and grow until finally I gave in. Just a little, I’d tell myself, and it will be OK. But the little on one day grew to a little more a week later, and within a month I’d be back to my old habits.

Sometime I’ll write a longer post about the course and my changing attitudes toward food. For now I’ll just say I am very thankful to have lost 40 pounds, and even more that I don’t have any particular interest in candy bars or potato chips or ice cream. Occasionally I have a little, usually when eating away from home. Sometimes it tastes delicious, but not enough for me to have any trouble saying no to a larger portion. Other times it really doesn’t taste as good as it used to, and I wonder how I could have been so enthralled by it for so long.

Legs
In the down-to-earth category (literally!), I am very thankful for two working legs. I have always loved walking – for pleasure, for exercise, and to find calm when I am angry, fearful, or worried. For a long time I took my legs for granted, but following a knee injury in 1984, for several weeks I could only walk with crutches. I came to appreciate my legs much more – as well as the strangers who sometimes stopped to help me (opening and going through doors that have automatic closers is very difficult when both hands are full of crutch handles).