Supplement City – Part 2
Yesterday, I talked about vitamins and how we supplement our diets—to the exclusion of eating real food. The supplements act as a substitute for not eating well. Eat poorly and take vitamins. Additionally, vitamins are touted as being a health enhancer. Faster, cheaper, and better than the original.
A Biblical perspective from Jesus:
Mark 7:7-8 (NLT)
“Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God. For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
Today, I want to talk about how we use this method in so many other areas of our lives. How we substitute and supplement our lives through various endeavors. What is the reason we need to supplement our lives anyway? I think it is because we feel like we are not getting enough significance and depth in our lives to today. To make up the difference we substitute stimulus for depth. Some examples:
- We substitute busyness for meaning. The more we do, the more we think it equates to significance.
- We supplement our lives by being more online and fostering many friendships there. The quantity of friends makes us feel like we have also have a depth to those relationships.
- We overemphasize our own lives. What is a person’s favorite subject? Themselves. And people like to talk about themselves – a lot . . .
Spiritually we do the same thing. When we are having issues with some spiritual area of our lives we then try to fill in the gap of what we are missing. A problem with your health? Let’s focus on all Biblical healing issues.
I am not trying to hammer all these specific methods. I just think they miss the mark. When you eat real (good) foods, problem solved. When you have fewer deeper friendships, more meaning. When you are in HIs presence, all your needs are met. Focus on the root, and the rest takes care of itself.
Supplement City
I used to be a big vitamin taker. I would hear what the latest super vitamin is and make sure I was getting plenty of it. I did not know if I was deficient in any of these elusive micro nutrients, but I was going to make sure I was getting more that enough. Every ailment seemed to have a corresponding vitamin to help fix that ailment. Here is the definition of supplement
Supplement: Something added to complete a thing, make up for a deficiency
Now so much of our food is “fortified” with these vitamins. It is added to everything, even soda’s. The newest magic bullet? Omega three fatty acids. An article from USATODAY in 2007 alludes to this fact. If we are getting smarter and know more and more about vitamins and supplements, why aren’t people getting any healthier. In fact in the United States, we are going backwards with such issues as obesity and diabetes.
Why do we chase after supplements anyway? They can never replace the effects of the real thing. In other words, eating real food with that is high in vitamin C content will always be better for you that taking mega doses as a supplement. If you took all of the nutrients you could out of broccoli and took them as a supplement, it would not even come close to the effects of eating the real thing.
I think we all have been seduced into believing the power of these add-ons. We have taken our eyes off real food and put them on these magic little pills. It is very alluring to just take these specific supplements and wham-o, good health forever! Only it doesn’t work. The real key is to eat real food. Not processed or man made, the real deal. For more information on this subject, check out the book “In Defense of Food”, by Michael Pollan. It is a great book.
I have stopped taking vitamins. I have refocused on eating good healthy foods. Real food, not man made. By doing that, everything else will take care of itself. It will just work,because that is what it was intended to do. But I am not writing this as a discourse on food. I am using this as an example of the substitutes and supplements that we use on a regular basis in an effort to “ . . . complete a thing, or make up for a deficiency” in other areas of out lives.
I will talk more about that tomorrow.
There is no place like home
This is absolutely my favorite time of year. I love being at home and watching nature unfold in our own yard. We have purposed over the last few years to add more trees, shrubs, and plants to our little 1-acre lot . So, the trees coming back to life, the lilacs and honeysuckle in bloom, the crabapple trees in full color, the vegetable garden getting planted, the bluebirds nesting in our yard, and the hummingbirds back at the window feeder are all reminders of life—and life more abundantly.
Daily, my wife and I walk around the yard to check up on all of our babies. How are our little trees doing this year? How about the small spruce trees? Is that winter burn or is that tree not doing so well? How are the baby bluebirds doing? It looks like the strawberries are being formed. You get the picture. Through it all, I see more and more detail of those things and I would know if something happened to any one of them. Also, I see God through it all.
I was watching the silver maples shed their load of seeds the other day. I have seen this many times before, but I was mesmerized by the whole thing. The seeds are transported by what looks like a helicopter wing. The wind was blowing fairly strong and some of the seeds were getting carried a hundred yards away from the tree. Ingenious! The seeds go far, but not too far.
There is no way that the design of those seeds could possibly happen by chance. It was designed, from the beginning, to do what it does. It is a tree, it does not think, it just does what it was designed to do.
There is only one explanation—a designer. The only possible designer is God.
I see this all over the place through the nature in our yard. I see examples of His handiwork everywhere. The more I slow down and watch, the more evident it becomes. I did not need to travel to the Pyramids or Hawaii to find Him. I have found a level of happiness and satisfaction by finding God in my own backyard. I hope you too can find Him in the most usual of places.
Technology Free Zone
Have you been in meetings where everyone brings their laptop and cell phone? Regardless of what is happening, someone is always distracted on the other side of that screen. Typing away or something. Then the phone rings (not on vibrate mode) and another person answers it or excuses himself to answer it. What?
I remember meetings where there was no electronics in them what-so-ever. Now, I work in Information Technology and I understand the benefit from what technology can bring to all of us, but I think we are drifting ever so closer to this social facade that acts like real social connections, but without the depth of the real thing.
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- Monarch Butterfly
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- Viceroy Butterfly
Nature is full of these impostors. Mushrooms are a great example. There is the morel, which is like gold for mushroom hunters and the ever present false morel. I good copy-cat but extremely toxic. Then there is the Monarch butterfly and the Viceroy butterfly. The Monarch is toxic to eat so the Viceroy disguises himself to look like a Monarch for protection. You should know the difference. One brings great benefits, one brings great sorrow. If you did not know to look for the difference you would treat them both equally. Look at the two butterflies above. They are hard to tell apart.
So what does this have to do with meetings? The creep of this busyness wrapped up in technology has disguised itself as a form of social connectedness that is really an impostor. When we have the opportunity to really connect, face-to-face, we still are drawn to our technical gadgets. We keep sliding in the wrong direction. Quick sound bites, interruptions, phones ringing in meetings, staying connected at all times.
Let’s all get back to the decorum, manners, and etiquette that we once held in great value. Let’s connect face-to-face by putting away the distractions. Let’s have depth in our relationships as compared to breadth. And, let’s be on alert to recognize those things that slowly creep into our lives promising more and leaving us with less.
Backyard Therapy
Now I don’t know about you, but this time of year for me brings renewed hope and excitement as I am finally unlocked from winter’s grip and I am able to get outside. The outdoor season started a little earlier this year because we ventured into syrup making in mid March. This weekend, the weather got into the mid 50′s and the March winds had finally subsided. It was also busy; the Masters was played (a sure sign of Spring), we had commitments on Saturday and Easter was Sunday. Hope and promises were on display all around us in the midst of it all.
Earlier in the week, I picked up seed potatoes for the garden. Now last year, when I got ready to get plant the garden, I waited too long and the seed potatoes were all gone. They sell faster than anything else because they can be put into the ground as soon as the frost is out. Also, the year before, we went on a trip out west and came back to a garden that was lost to the weeds. So, needless to say, I was a little stoked about getting the best of the potatoes, earlier than usual.
I tilled the garden on Friday and I am thinking I can get some cold weather plants in a little early (lettuce, carrots and potatoes). I hacked the raspberry bushes to within a foot of the ground. The trees I trimmed this winter were still on the ground, so I brought those to the composting place. Is everything ready to go? No, but I can feel it. I can see the grass turning from brown to a light green. I can see the buds on the trees plump and full, ready to burst open.
We typically do not take a vacation in the winter so this time of year is especially gratifying. I absolutely love it. In the upcoming weeks we will be moving some shrubs, planting some trees, vegetable garden, and our annual garden, rearranging and expanding our perennial garden, and enjoying every minute of being that much closer to God in the process. We still have a lot of “work” to do, but I cannot wait to get my hands dirty.
With all the changes happening in our lives and the technology world that I live in, this is the best and most satisfying thing that Spring brings. It is theripudic to my soul. This spring, may you also find the time to get your hands dirty and breath in the rich smell of the earth as you plant your own garden.