Brides. Purging. Studying.

I was talking with my pastor before church started on Sunday, and he shared with me an anecdote:

“Do you really believe the church is the bride of Christ?”

“Yes.”

“If you talked about my wife, the way you talk about the Church, I’d kick your ass.”

While this (possibly) wasn’t directed at me, I still felt its sting. If I really believe that the Church is the bride of Christ, why do I talk about it the way I do? I certainly wouldn’t talk about a friends’ wife the way I talk about the Church.

*

It’s been a week since I started trying to rid my body of some of the toxins, and the same length of time since I renewed an old commitment to read my Bible everyday. I find it is easier when I have a plan.

I have been able to take away all caffeine now, doing away with the morning green tea. I have found that I can make some amazing smoothies for breakfast; they are more practical and easy to transport. My favorite one is an apple, a banana, milk, honey, wheat germ, cinnamon, and ice. Another good one is carrots, celery, banana, apple, honey, wheat germ, cranberry-grape juice, and ice; although, it is a little grassy, so if you don’t like “greeny-tasting things” I wouldn’t try it.

I have had only minimal refined sugars, because I had a small piece of cake at a friend’s 80th birthday party, and another piece of cake at my parent’s house on Memorial Day (I didn’t have icing on that one, though). The only extra sugar I have been getting is two tablespoons of honey in my smoothie in the morning. I find that it doesn’t make me feel like other sugar, though, with that high/low feeling like crap by 10 in the morning. Not drinking alcohol the night before is probably helping with that.

I am trying hard to eat healthy food, too. I have been eating fresh vegetables, fruits, and grains while cutting back on the amount of meat and cheese I eat.I have to say that I feel pretty good.

I have also been walking about four miles each day, give or take. I am hoping that Bec and I will start taking evening bike-rides this week. I am going to pump up the tires on her bike today in order to encourage us to ride tonight. We did get up this morning to walk the dogs, which is a good step!

I have read the first seven chapters of Genesis, Ezra, Matthew, and Acts. I think this is a strange way to go about reading the Bible in a year, but I am just following the plan, hoping it will all make sense at the end. I can see some interesting threads by putting four books up against each other that I would never have thought about together. I can see hope/despair, light/dark, oppression/jubilation, and holy/unholy as large ideas that emerge when I think about the four texts together. I am sure there are more, but those are the ones that come readily to mind.

Doing both of these things together is helping me to think positive. I think very soon, my colleagues may think I am a Jesus freak. I am not sure that would be a bad thing.

*

I am growing weary of studying already, and I haven’t really done much of it. The time that Elizabeth and I are spending on Fridays seems to be the most valuable, because I think talking through my ideas using texts that I already know well is more helpful than reading a bunch of texts I have never read before and then trying to see how they fit into the grand scheme of things.

I hope my anthologies come in today because, once I have them, I can start studying specific texts instead of broad sweeps of time periods. Until they come in, though, I am trying to get my mind around the period designations so I don’t accidentally use two books from the same period to answer a question that needs texts from multiple periods. I could see myself doing that in a pinch.