My body, my identity

Consider this a plug for a book I haven't read yet. It's titled "Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors and Ourselves." The author is a self-described fat Lutheran, J. Nicole Morgan. In an interview featured in the November issue of "The Living Lutheran," Morgan describes her book as "a little bit memoir, a little bit theology." It features stories, she says, of congregational life for fat people, and it seeks to explore the meaning of "made in the image of God" as it applies to people who carry extra weight, The "Living Lutheran" interviewer elicited from Morgan some broad but on-target insights: that a fat body is often seen as a sign of sin (gluttony?); that other people in the pews may assume a large person lacks the "fruit of the Spirit" known as self-control; that people might even think a fat person isn't really a Christian, because they view her body as a walking billboard of bro...

Well, that's one way to look at "motivation." Heaven knows I've heard similar admonitions from doctors and other health care professionals, though rarely with such wit and bluntness. It's sort of like "winning people to Christ" by telling them they're headed for hell. I don't think that approach works in the long run, not even among the original 1741 congregation for Jonathan Edwards' quintessential hellfire-and-brimstone sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." So if scaring people doesn't move them to work out, what does? Here's what works for me: Seeking an activity I truly enjoy. I love my water time. Even when I'm tired and my body is telling me it's time to take a shower and get dressed, I'm always reluctant to get out of the pool. (Yes, my doctor has cleared me to return to the pool. Hallelujah!) Combining activity with something else I enjoy. Some people like their power-walks because the...

What you are about to see is pornography -- hard-core food pornography. Images like this one -- and even more obscene images, such as buttercream-y cakes and chocolate-y EVERYTHING -- pop up on my Facebook feed from time to time. Unless you are carbing up for three consecutive triathlons, this is not fuel. This is ballast. Biggie-bottom, fat-rolls-around-the-midsection ballast. I'd say, "Get it out of my sight!", except for one thing: I've been raised to crave food like this, and so has just about everybody I know. We grew up on monstrous-size portions of cheesy, saucy, meaty, greasy, creamy, sugary foods that neither fuel nor strengthen us, just fill us and fatten us. As fond as I am of approaching food the way the Apostle Paul approached ethical behavior for Christians -- "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful" -- I have to be bluntly honest, and say that if you're serious about losing weight and keeping it off, you have to stay a...

I read the Scripture lessons in church today, one of them from a Genesis passage I don't like much. It's the second chapter of Genesis -- a passage that suggests female human beings were an afterthought. The passage, starting with verse 18, goes like this: Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper as his partner. So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ... But for the man, there was not found a helper as his partner." I can just picture it: God showing Adam a cow, a pig, a dog, a sparrow, an orangutan, maybe a giraffe and a penguin, too -- and Adam says, "Nope, that won't do for a helper/partner." So, only after Adam rejected beasts and birds did God decide maybe it would be a good idea to make a female of the specie...

This post came across my Facebook transom a few years ago. I share it in its entirety, minus the nude photo of a plus-size woman that accompanied it: A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a w hale?" The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way: "Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness. They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia. They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on CDs. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires. Mermaids do not exist. But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a...

I bought a new watch last night. The merchant offered a 30 percent discount on the purchase of any pink watch, because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Because I haven't been able to locate my watch since my recuperation from knee surgery in March and April, I needed a new one. And sale or no sale, I would have chosen a pink one anyway. Because of breast cancer awareness? Not really, although that's a worthy goal. Pink is my signature color. It's a color that, until recently, I never wore. Although I've never been color-draped (that was all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s), I know I'm a classic Autumn -- reddish hair, pale skin, brown eyes. That's why I've always tended toward wearing earth tones and jewel tones, colors like rust, russet, teal, amethyst, ruby and, oddly enough, the green shades of emerald or peridot (olive). My mother was the rare lucky one -- a true Spring. Any color looked good on her, but she really shone in various shade...