Obesity and Being Fat

One of my dear friends from seminary has been a fat acceptance advocate for quite a while. She shared this article with me. It really shows the difference between being a fat hater and wanting to be healthy. Two different things I promise. Read "
America’s War on the Overweight " and let me know what you think.

In particularly I appreciated the explanations of why there's so much animosity.

So why don't we have more compassion for people struggling to lose the first 50,
60, or 100? Some of it has to do with the psychological phenomenon known as the
fundamental attribution error, a basic belief that whatever problems befall us
personally are the result of difficult circumstances, while the same problems in
other people are the result of their bad choices. Miss a goal at work? It's
because the vendor was unreliable, and because your manager isn't giving you
enough support, and because the power outage last week cut into premium sales
time. That jerk next to you? He blew his quota because he's a bad planner, and
because he spent too much time taking personal calls.

I've been struggling with this concept for a few months, because I have found out there are medical reasons why the last 5 years I've been gaining weight rapidly and unable to lose more than just a few pounds. I am hypothyroid and have insulin resistance... which means that without treatment, I'm not burning carbs when I eat them but storing them and I'm also unable to burn stored fat when I exercise or reduce calories. Maintaining my weight +/- 10# was all I was able to do even with restricted diets.

So now I REALLY DO have reasons (beyond the typical too much caloric intake problem) why this has happened to me. But what I think (instead of this "fundamental attribution error" and feeling like an exception to the rule) is that there are more people out there who have hidden thyroid problems (esp. women) and hidden insulin problems.

The authors go on to talk about the catch 22 of weight ridicule... mock us too much and we don't care anymore about healthy eating and exercise. who cares if i'll be chastised and condescendingly mocked even if i try. While I have had periods where I felt it just didn't matter if I tried(because I will always be fat in other people's eyes) 95% of my life that has NOT been the case.

I also know that there are plenty of hypothyroid people who never will get as large as I am now. Not sure about insulin resistance... that disorder has this chicken/egg thing going for it. The more one gains weight, the more insulin resistant one gets. Is it because of the fat or is the fat just the easiest sign of increasing resistance to burning carbs correctly? I tend to think the latter, but don't let most doctors hear that.

What my doctor (who's helping me with the thyroid and insulin stuff) has told me is basically summed up as "I'm up shit creek without a paddle" when it comes to maintaing a healthy weight. If you think about it, if my hypothyroidism never showed up in the tests and no one ever checked my insulin levels with my glucose, I'd continue down this road until I got diabetes, my heart and arterial problems increased, my female problems got worse and probably leading to infertility and I'd just keep getting fatter which would compromise my joints even more. What a lovely thought.

If I had not pestered doctors for 2 years about this, none of my problems would have been discovered. So, while I am ALL about fat acceptance for psychological and spiritual reasons... I hope that larger people, who are twice the weight of their high school weight like me, never give up on being healthy.

Memory books and gender roles

The past month or so I've been working on the curriculum for the 6 session grief group I'm facilitating starting in Sept. I have to say that I missed this part of ministry... the education and facilitation of discussion. I've grown lazy the past 6 months or so when it comes to keeping up with my profession and the ideas and theories out there. So, dredging up the content from seminary and CPE and putting my own twist to it has been fun.

I'm putting in several parts to it, education, sharing/discussion, and activities. I'm not the most artistic person in the world, but I enjoy artsy-craftsy things and trying to find simple low-budget things to do with them.

Not surprisingly I've found most of my ideas in kids bereavement group suggestions. We don't expect kids to be as cerebrally focused as adults. I'm not going to have them create masks of their feelings or sing songs about being sad. However, I did like the idea of including the choice of drawing activities in the assignments at home.

I'm also giving them a simple folder/journal and suggesting activities they can do on their own. I've found some really neat ideas. One of them is based on creating a memory book about the deceased. I've read ideas before about encouraging people to take up as a project interviewing people for stories about the loved one. But this one suggested creating a cook book of favorite food memories, stories intermingled with recipes. I love it!

This springboarded (is that really a verb?) my brain into thinking of other variations... find the person's favorite hobby and focus the memory book around that... say chess or bridge or quilting or puzzles or gardening. So many ways one could spin off from that.

I'm also contemplating working up one of my group study plans for the corporate office. Some of the stuff (ok, most of it) they put out for us to use is so outdated and based on stereotypes that contemporary pyscho-social theory don't take as seriously anymore. It makes me gag... I'm mean, seriously. One of them is on how men and women grieve differently. Yes, a valid conversation.

However, the language was very definitive and authoritative on stereotypical gender roles... as if all men are introverts about ready to burst from bottled up emotions and all women are extraverts who have to gush their emotions all over everyone else in order to function in emotionally stressful situations. PUH-LEEZ. Let's take into account some contemporary thoughts on gender roles and emotional development/personality.

I do have to remember that my hospice doesn't require an MDiv or any CPE to be a chaplain and bereavement coordinator. And so much of the bible school and church school training would reinforce viewpoints I disagree with.

With that in mind, as I was planning a grief group session on why/how people grieve differently, I'm not only covering basic introvert/extravert stuff, etc. I'm using Rev. Gary Chapman's Love Languages... because I know not everyone in the world is jonzing to use psycho-social tools to understand his/her journey. Not everyone has to think like me... I SWEAR!

A Season for Receiving... A Funeral Sermon

(Names are changed for privacy. This is probably the most traditional language I ever use pertaining to salvation... it was per the family's request. I hope that I made it my own and not untrue to my theology.)

Ecclesiastes 3-A Time for Everything
1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. 15 Whatever is has already been,and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

John 14 1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going." 5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”

I met Daisy at the beginning of this year. She’d been living at the nursing home for a while already and everyone there loved her. And I could see why. She always had a huge smile for anyone who passed by or helped her with things. I noticed when I sat with her in the dining room, people would stop by or talk to her just to see her smile. She wasn’t able to tell me many stories, though I learned some things through her daughter Josie. So, mostly, I’d sit with her and hold her hand, asking occasional questions or complimenting her on her outfit.

When I sat with her, I contemplated what it must be like to be where she was right at that moment, after 98 years of life. She had worked hard all her life, the first half devoted to the work of keeping a house full of kids and husband clothed, fed, and happy. And now she lived with people who are responsible for keeping her clean, clothed and fed.

It seems her life had many seasons, just as every person’s does. What is the purpose or meaning to these seasons of life and what can we learn from them? Does God have something we are supposed to learn or experience from each of these seasons? I believe God does, but I’m not so sure we always see it.

Many of us will live full lives that, like Daisy, start with being cared for by others and end being cared for by others. In between those times, most of our lives will be focused on caring for others, through work and family. Society teaches us that the most important accomplishments we do will be when we are working and taking care of family… but that makes old age seem like a waste of time and a hardship to endure. What God wants us to remember through this passage in Ecclesiastes is that the being cared for and caring for others are both important. We like to think about the happy times when all decisions are made by us and life goes according to plan. But life doesn’t always go according to plan and I don’t always get to choose how my life goes.

I don’t know about you, but I have an independent streak a mile long. I have been trained since child birth to work towards getting things done and being generous to others in need. But when I’m down and out, it’s hard for me to receive with grace and gratitude the generousness of others. I feel weak, useless and without power. But in those times life seems to have no meaning, when bad things happen to good people, God knows the meaning and purpose of it all. God understands our suffering and our struggle and will help us through it.

The times most people become closer to God is during times of helplessness. When there is no one else to turn to, God is there. And when we live our lives to the fullest, we are living in Christ. So, like Christ, we will be raised and taken care of as a child. As adults, we will care for others, as Jesus showed us in his ministry. And while Jesus never got to be old, he did allow for others to give generously to him, just as Doris had and others will. The woman anointing his feet with oil, Mary and Martha hosting him in their house and feeding him. To receive the gifts of others when we have nothing is a very sacred act that God wants us to do. It is hard, humbling, and not without discomfort. But to do so with a generous and gracious heart is saintly.

So, while I did not get to learn from Daisy’s wisdom on flowers or get to eat her fresh baked bread, I did learn a great deal from her. She received the help and care of the staff at the nursing home with a bright smile and cheerful heart. I watched others brush her hair and wipe her mouth between meals. I pushed her wheelchair on walks and back to her room. Even when breathing was hard work and you could tell she was hurting, she would smile at me and say thank you.

In John 14, through Jesus, God tells us that there is a place waiting for us after this life, if only we were to rely upon the grace of Christ. Once again, even upon death, we must rely upon another to get us where we need to be. To trust so completely on another is hard work and God knows it. In today’s world we are taught to not trust anything we can’t see with our own eyes. But the Holy Spirit can’t be seen and the work of God is only apparent to those who believe. I invite you to place your trust in Jesus. I invite you to put yourself in the care of God and see where your life and your death will take you.

I’m comforted to know that Daisy is a Christian. Through her acts of receiving graciously I experienced the presence of God in her life. And through her baptism, she will continue to be in the presence of our Lord and Savior. Amen.