Have Mercy on the Morons: A Plea on Behalf of the Misinformed

How do you know what you know?

That may seem like a pretty basic question, but it's a question that few of us are ever pushed to ask, let alone answer. It is a question, however, that has begun to bother me more than a little in recent years.

Of course, there are certain basic and unprovable assumptions that I must hold by faith as a Christian. Or even as a human being. Not every statement is up for debate. Whether we believe that God, or reason, or science, or Bono, or our own gut feeling is our ultimate standard for truth, we all have a place where the buck stops. All of our reasoning becomes circular when we get down to our most foundational beliefs.

I believe in the God of the Bible, and that necessitates that I reject any statements—however compelling—that directly contradict that belief. If someone asserts that theft is actually a good idea when you can get away with it, I can reject that statement without losing a single night's sleep, because it flatly defies the eighth commandment. Easy. But beyond the clear teachings of the Bible is a myriad of assertions that are anything but easy to assess. They require a degree of knowledge and wisdom that most of us will never attain. These are the kinds of questions that make me wonder how we really know what we "know."


A Matter of Trust
It's not that I lie awake at night worrying about this, and I have no plans for taking up the study of epistemology in my spare time. But honestly, every time one of my well intentioned Facebook friends posts another link to some piece of revisionist history, or alternative medicine, or political conspiracy, or any other article claiming to expose "hidden agendas" and "things the corporations don't want you to know," I feel like tearing my hair out.

It's not that I believe all these articles must be wrong. They may be absolutely right. Or mainly right. Or a little bit right about a few things. But therein lies my frustration; with the seemingly infinite number of "untold stories" out there, it's frequently impossible to know which stories to believe.

"Every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses" (Matthew 18:16). But what about all the times when the witnesses—even the "expert" witnesses—present conflicting evidence? When both the prosecution and the defense can call upon the testimony of two or three persuasive witnesses, how do I decide who makes a more convincing case? Daily life lacks the formality of a courtroom, and there are times when my decision cannot wait. I, of course, pray for wisdom, but often I must render my verdict while knowing full well that I have only part of the story and a few tidbits of sketchy evidence.

If, for example, somebody tells me that my government has lied to me about a particular event in the Middle East, I have to choose whom to believe if I am going to cast a "responsible vote." If there's been a cover-up, it is, well, covered up. There are many things I simply can't know. Do I trust the embittered soldier who was there? The apparently competent general who was also there? The commander in chief who saw the top-secret intelligence reports? The civilians who were affected on the ground? The talk radio host who interpreted the information? The NPR reporter who was embedded with the unit? The news anchor on Al Jazeera? The political blogger who scours the Web for possible leaks and insider stories? How do you know what you know?

I bring this up not because I want to start a discussion on foreign policy. I most certainly don't. And I don't want to sound like a relativist who thinks that all views are equally valid; I believe there's a vast gulf between truth and falsehood. I bring this up because I have found myself increasingly at a loss in sorting through the wildly differing "facts" littering my way as I try to navigate through life—especially through life as a parent.


The Curse of the Over-Informed Parent
In case you hadn't noticed, nearly everything we do for our kids requires careful thought. We need wisdom to sort through the barrage of opinions and studies and information and advice. Studies can be wrong, statistics can be twisted, and people on both sides of an issue can be less than objective in their approach. But the problem is, nobody I know has the time or resources to exhaustively research every possible option presented to us as parents. And because these decisions involve our kids—our future—emotions surrounding these choices tend to run rather high.

A typical mom might be disinterested in politics, apathetic about eschatology, bored by artistic trends. But bring up the topic of, say, childhood vaccines, and boom!  Watch the fireworks begin.

It's so very easy to assume that other parents who have made decisions different from our own have simply failed to understand the issues, or are too lazy to do their research, or have motives that aren't altogether pure. Maybe they've been brainwashed by propaganda. Maybe they haven't seen the shocking episode of 20/20 that we saw. Maybe they haven't talked to the right people. Maybe they're just stupid.

Or maybe, just maybe, they know something that we don't.

We can all agree on certain primary issues—that we should feed, clothe, educate and care for the health of our children. But the secondary details involving how we do those things can vary widely among wise and respectable people. We may all be diligently researching our options and still come to opposing conclusions. And that should hardly come as a surprise. We have studies and statistics bombarding us on every side, but rarely do they form any kind of consensus or any sense of certainty. As tidy as the word "data" may sound, the reality is anything but.


Expert Worship
We may have a pantheon of experts just a URL away, but the Cult of the Expert is a demanding and dizzying religion. First, we all slavishly follow the ex cathedra pronouncements of anybody in a white lab coat and a "Doctor of" diploma framed on the wall. But then some fringe heretic has the gall to stand up and point out that butter actually seems to be better for us than margarine after all and that the AMA and the USDA and the AAP have made some disastrous mistakes. We read the 95 Nutritional Theses nailed to the laboratory door, and our allegiances begin to shift.

Disillusioned by white lab coats, we turn with Reformation zeal to the unshaven nonconformist in Birkenstocks and a broomstick skirt who would expose for us the lies told by the priests of the old order. Down with the establishment! Let's pass out tracts! Let's evangelize the nations with the latest findings, baptizing them in the holistic name of the Protein, the Fat, and the Carbohydrates! Do I hear an "Amen?"

But wait a minute. Now the expert in the broomstick skirt is the establishment, and certain preventable diseases are seeing a global resurgence, to boot. The Holy Writ of the Expert must again be revised. But who will be our prophets and our priests now that nine out of ten nutritionists no longer agree? Which expert's Kool-aid are we going to drink next?

We could spend the rest of our lives chasing after the next "shocking revelation" offered up by the expert-du-jour, only to have each "important new study" undermined by the next.

The fact is, we can't run some kind of in-depth investigation into everything we hear. Not even close. And even if we could, we would still have to make faith-based decisions about what evidence to believe and how to interpret it. "Proof" is only as solid as the assumptions that underlie it. Even if I saw something with my own two eyes, I can still only know it happened if my own two eyes are trustworthy. (And that may be a very big "if.")

So the easiest solution is to turn to the Expert (blessed be he). He will tell us just what to do. No wisdom necessary. And when his advice fails us, we can blame, instead of ourselves, the evil pseudo-expert—the informational heretic—who led us astray.

But the real solution is, I believe, to remember where our true authority comes from and to realize that no earthly expert has a monopoly on knowledge. The data, however good and helpful, must be taken with a grain or two of (unrefined, natural Baltic Sea) salt.  The world is a messy place made up of messy people with messy motives, and while true knowledge about the world is attainable, exhaustive knowledge is not.

The older our kids get, the more I am amazed by the number of decisions we are required to make on their behalf. And the more decisions we have to make, the more I realize how much I just don't know. Socrates was on to something. I may not go so far as to say that I know nothing, but what I don't know definitely outweighs what I do. By a lot. Tons, actually.

This is why I have sometimes found myself wishing that an angel from heaven (a different kind of expert) would simply appear and tell me exactly whom to believe about things I'm told to do (or not to do) for the good of my children. But this is not going to happen, so we must proceed as wisely as we can with what information we can find in the time that we can set aside to find it. And in doing so, we must all—experts included—recognize that we have a whole lot left to learn. Additionally, we who are Christians must not lose sight of where the beginning of knowledge lies—with the fear of the Lord. That's our starting point. Whatever other knowledge we pursue must be built on that foundation.


A Toast to Ignorance
Even before they are born, I'm given conflicting information on all kinds of topics. Here's one bit of advice that's been printed everywhere from public bathrooms to health manuals: "Alcohol and pregnancy do not mix." The "experts" have a litany of scary statistics implying that an unintentional sip of grape juice gone bad could leave your unborn baby mentally impaired. So pregnant women nervously chew their nails wondering if they've ruined their child's life by drinking an entire cocktail before knowing they were expecting. But (as always seems to be the case) that's only one side of the story.

There are also scientific studies and statistics (mostly British) that have "proven" just the opposite—that children of women who drank "moderately" during pregnancy actually had brighter, better adapted children than those of women who had completely abstained. And some of these studies allege that it's fear of litigation that has (understandably) led most American obstetricians to advocate the total-abstinence policy, fearing that women will interpret permission to have a drink as permission to go on a month-long vodka binge.

So what to do? Better safe than sorry? Or better lighten up than stress out? Whom to believe? British doctors or American doctors? OBs or midwives? Your mom or that lady from the church potluck? I've tried to read a fair bit about this one, and the more I've read, the more I feel like reciting "eeny-meeny-miney-mo" is probably the best means of deciding the issue.

Sheesh. Please pass the shiraz.


Love and Let Live
I have more to learn than is humanly possible if I am going to make what might be called an "informed decision" about almost anything you can name. And so, I am guessing, do most of us. That is why I am writing this—not as a rant but as a plea for mercy. Share what you've learned for the good of your neighbor, and wisdom can be the result. Beat your neighbor over the head with the cold, hard facts, and somebody is going to get hurt. And it just might be the "facts" themselves that suffer.

In this messy world, charity is the necessary antidote to the idolatrous worship of expertise. Let us hear with gratitude—let us even seek out—what the knowledgeable have to say, but let us not bow down and kiss their feet.

If you see me nibbling on a Chicken McNugget; if you see me, with my pregnant belly, sipping on a mojito; if you see me taking my children for a vaccination; if you see me voting for the wrong candidate (shame on you for peeking); if you see me buying goods from the wrong store; if you see me doing anything else you would never, never do, I beg you to withhold your scorn and instead show a little mercy. I promise to do the same for you.

Staying Afloat

On Monday morning at 9:00, we began our second session of swimming lessons for the summer. I've been pleased to see how the boys have cheerfully braved the cold mornings (48° and drizzle on the first day) and pushed themselves to do what, just two weeks ago, seemed impossible. Watching them, I can feel butterflies in my own stomach as I remember what it was like to take that first frightening plunge into the deep end, and to make that first nerve-wracking trip down the big slide through blind curves and slippery darkness. We all know what it's like to be pushed in over heads.

As the instructors carry the Pre-Tadpole students, who cling fiercely to their necks, to the "deep" end of the kiddie pool, one child's panicked shrieks suddenly fly across the bright surface of the water: "Don't let go! Don't let go! It's too deep! I! Caaan't! Swiiiiim!" From our deck chairs we parents watch these frequent displays of childish terror with mild amusement. We know they'll be safe, but they, out there where their feet dangle uselessly above the bottom of the pool, are far from convinced.

The swim teacher repeats what has become a mantra during the last ten days: "I've got you. You'll be all right. You're not gonna sink."  But the wildly kicking legs, the rapid gasps for air and the expression of wide-eyed dread prove that this kid is momentarily deaf to all attempts at persuasion. Until his feet can touch the bottom, he will trust no one and nothing but his gut instincts—which are clearly telling him that he is going to die out here in this 4-foot-deep chlorinated abyss. And while I may chuckle at his frantic behavior, this terrified child is certainly not the only one overcome at times by panic and a sensation of drowning.

Water is a scary substance. It's no wonder that so many of the great stories of deliverance involve escape through and from water: Noah waiting to rise above the deluge; Jonah plunging to certain death and being saved in the nick of time; Moses holding out his staff to allow the children of Israel to pass through the water to safety; the disciples frantically waking Jesus to rescue them from drowning at sea; and, of course, Peter growing afraid and beginning to sink, calling out, "Lord, save me!" (Who of us, if called, would have stepped out of that boat in the first place?)

Water is a blessing that can kill. Is it any wonder that being "in over your head" and being "overwhelmed" are now clichés for that feeling of bewilderment—of being required to do the impossible?

These last several months, my husband and I have both felt ourselves drifting away from the shallow end, nearing the deep water where it looks like we're certain to drown. Each time I feel the water rising, I catch my breath and wonder if I can do this. Can we really stay afloat with so much to weigh us down? Can we keep our heads above water while balancing four kids, a marriage, friendships, work, heaps of little projects, church responsibilities, community responsibilities, a pregnancy, a sick grandmother, and a dissertation? Can't we just stay in the shallow end for a while and let the water splash around our ankles? Half the time I feel like flailing and hyperventilating like that kid in the swim class. Well intentioned people may be telling me, "You'll be all right. You're not gonna sink," but all I know is that the bottom is a long way down, and I am anything but buoyant.

Keeping our heads above water. That's what we're trying to do this summer. And, as my boys and I can attest, it doesn't always seem possible. When all the evidence appears to point to the contrary, it's hard to believe that we all won't go under. After all, our feet can't touch the bottom.

I've heard that youth group leaders and marriage counselors use "trust games" as a method for strengthening relationships between individuals. One person must fall backwards, arms folded, into the waiting arms of another, trusting that those arms will be there to break the fall—strong enough to save and protect from harm. I admit that I've always found the idea of these games pretty ridiculous. I mean, isn't there a less childish and contrived way to build trust?

Well, maybe there is. But watching my kids floundering helplessly in water over their heads has given me a new appreciation for these "trust games." It's easy to laugh at my boys' nervousness—and even at their terror. We know that they have nothing to fear, but they know nothing of the kind. All that stands between them and death is that pair of waiting arms, ready to catch them when they fall, to pull them up when they're sinking.

I know exactly how they feel. While I may, like them, be tempted to doubt and to start pleading, "Don't let go! Don't let go!" there are others—many others—who have already been out here before me and survived. Through the years, they've successfully maintained their marriages, finished their projects, raised their families, completed their dissertations. They are expert swimmers, and I'm sure that they are watching me amusedly from their deck chairs as I learn to swim. They are perfectly certain that I am not going to drown. I, while I was back in the shallows of the kiddie pool, found it easy to believe that, too. It's only now, when I'm being called to venture out into these unfamiliar depths, that I grow afraid and begin to sink.

I'm not walking on water. I'm not even treading water. I'm with Peter, about to go under and crying, "Lord, save me!"

Last week, even with his life jacket firmly secured around his chest and his teacher's arms waiting just below to catch him, Paul was terrified to jump. "Thirteen feet deep. This water is thirteen feet deep," he was thinking. The measurements may have had only vague meaning to his four-year-old mind, but even a four-year-old can see that the water below is a darker, deeper shade of blue than the kiddie pool will allow. All our cheery assurances could not convince him of safe passage through that cobalt expanse, and simply seeing others survive the leap was not proof enough that survival was possible for him. My little Paul could no more save himself from thirteen feet of water than fly, and yet his teacher was calling to him to jump.

Shivering with both fear and chill, Paul could not bring himself to step off the end of the diving board. So with a nod from his dad, the instructor dropped him in. And, wonder of wonders, Paul survived. But even his own escape from a watery grave will not convince him to take that fateful step a second time. This, for him, was a true trust game—and not one that, at this point in the season, he was willing to play again.

We all know that it's more comfortable back in the shallows. It's easier to believe that we're going to survive when we're sitting on the solid planks of the boat. But if we're called to step away from the edge, to walk out where the blue below us is darker, out where the wind is rising, trust becomes a more difficult matter. We may grow fearful. We may begin to sink. But if we have been called to do the impossible, to jump into the deep end, to step out of the boat in the midst of the sea, go we must.


He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  

—Matthew 14:29-31

The greatest show on earth

On Sunday afternoon, we celebrated the birthdays of my two youngest sons, Paul and Asaph. Paul is four today, and Asaph turned two on Friday. I know that every mother says this each time her child has a birthday, but I really, truly can't believe how fast the time has gone. My "baby" is two? How did that happen? All I did was put Cheerios and strained carrots into his mouth, and poof! I now have a walking, talking, sword-wielding boy in front of me. My little Paul is now learning to play piano and sound out words. Is that possible? Is there some astonishing sleight of hand at work here?

I can tell you what happened. But I absolutely cannot tell you how. This wasn't my doing. I had nothing up my sleeve. No trick cards. No false doors. This is the real deal. This kind of magic has the makings of a sell-out Vegas attraction—only better.

David Copperfield, you can't impress me. I know someone who can turn water into wine. He can do it with a (magic) word in a moment, or he can do it with rain and vines over months, but he does it all the time. What can you do, Mr. Copperfield?

I know someone who can turn coal into diamonds. Do they do that in Vegas?

I know someone who can transform tomato soup and grilled cheese into flesh and bone. No smoke or mirrors involved. And I don't have to buy tickets to watch it happen. Can you do that, Mr. Copperfield?

Unlike in Vegas, this is the kind of show that attracts biologists with clipboards. They sit, unmoved, in the audience and observe the magic. They describe it in minute detail—right down to the molecular level. They write articles in scientific journals and make Discovery Channel documentaries about it. But they can't tell us anything—not anything—about how all this is happening. Or why. They might use the word "because", but they don't really mean it. All those impressive charts of the digestive process and the breakdown of chemical elements for use by various cells amount to nothing more than journalistic observation.

The biologist might say, "The kidneys convert vitamin D into calcitriol to help the body absorb dietary calcium and phosphorus into the blood and bones." But in spite of his impressive, Latinate words, he is doing nothing more than telling us, in essence, that the kidney has just pulled a rabbit out of its hat. The scientist is simply another spectator (albeit with a good pair of opera glasses) recording his experience at the greatest show on earth. He has no backstage pass.

We think that, because we've seen something a hundred times, we can understand it. Because we can describe what we saw, we believe we can explain why it happened. But that is the only illusion taking place in this venue. What's happening in front of our eyes is no illusion; it's magic in its most genuine sense. The medieval alchemists believed that lead could be turned into gold. But I believe in the far more improbable notion that a single cell can turn into an oak tree, or a sea cucumber, or Barak Obama. Ladies, and gentlemen, children of all ages, it happens in real life! Why isn't anyone selling tickets?

Four years and several gallons of milk can turn my helpless infant into a talkative preschooler. Throw in a few more years and a mountain of sandwiches, and that preschooler will be big enough to drive a car. And his voice will have changed. What a brilliant performance! And I've been invited to watch from the front row. Could there be a greater privilege?

Sometimes, I admit, raising small children seems to be something less than magical. Sometimes a day at home with a group of busy little ones can feel like an eternity—an endless cycle of diapers and drool and discipline. But then, I blink and realize that the baby has (abracadabra!) grown into a toddler. Right here, under my nose, a jaw-dropping transformation is taking place. Suspend your disbelief. (Suspend your unbelief.) Enjoy the show. The Bellaggio has nothing on the nursery.

Hot Dogs and Forbidden Fruit

When the weather is as grey and muddy as it has been this January, my kids tend to get cabin fever, so as an antidote, I took the boys to eat lunch and play at the indoor playground in the mall. We sat at a table right outside the GNC store. The store windows were decorated with larger-than-life black-and-white posters of athletic bodies exposing lots of taut, shiny skin. The posters were surrounded by sober ads for supplements and weight loss drinks and weight gain drinks and “super-food” bars. I had to laugh. Next to those gods and goddesses of bodily health, we were enjoying (yes, enjoying) a delightful lunch of hot dogs and generic Cheetos.

The juxtaposition between those ultra-serious advertisements and our fun-filled little repast was downright comical. While my boys and I licked fake cheese off of our artificially orange fingers, I got quite a kick out of watching the women in tight jeans and the men in tight shirts parading into the nutrition store. In fact, the delight it gave me was almost excessive. Those black-and-white posters of hot bods dressed in Spandex were perfectly joyless when compared with the cheery, little ketchup-smeared faces in front of me. With us were all the smiles, all the color, all the joie de vivre. With them, only sexy pouts glaring into the middle distance and daring me to feel guilty for the greasy meal I’d set before my children.

But "guilty" is exactly what I refuse to feel. I don't plan on making Cheetos and hot dogs a daily staple of our diet, but neither am I living in fear of the "long term side effects" from an occasional dose of nitrates and food coloring. Worrying is bad for my health. Rock-hard abs and buns of steel are fine, if that's your cup o' tea. (Although displaying them in Spandex shorts at twice life size is another thing....) But pursuing the ultimate body or the perfect metabolism is not my only goal in life. It's not even a major goal.

Of course I want to be healthy. Of course it's better not to be out of breath just walking from the car to the couch. Of course I want my kids to live for a long time. Of course I'd rather not have my family suffer from disease. But there's so, so much more to good health—bodily and otherwise—than what I put into my mouth every day. However, from some of the conversations I've heard and articles I've read, you'd almost think that food was both the root cause and the ultimate solution to every kind of evil.

Given all the money and time and effort we put into our food, it's not surprising that we have strong opinions on the subject. And I think it’s good that we give some thought to what and how we eat. But something else seems to be going on here. Food has become a topic that is almost too hot to touch.

From Julie & Julia to Food, Inc., we're fascinated enough by food to pay exorbitant prices to watch movies about it. There's an entire television network devoted to it. A huge, adoring crowd showed up at WSU this month to hear Michael Pollan speak on the subject. We have chefs with celebrity status. We have major cities legislating whether we're allowed to buy a cookie made with shortening.  And then there are food books and food magazines and food discussion groups and food manifestos and food blogs. We are, in a word, obsessed.

Don't get me wrong. I love food—from homegrown tomatoes to Hostess Ding Dongs. But it's because I love food that I hate so much the way we've distorted it into something overbearing and monstrous. Instead of consuming food, we're letting it consume us. We're food fanatics. Cuisine cops. Nutrivangelists. The Gourmet Gestapo. Casually mention in mixed company (only as a hypothetical social experiment, of course) that you fed Twinkies to your children for breakfast, and wait for the sharp intake of breath and the stunned silence to follow.

Because we won't allow food to play its proper role as a source of strength, pleasure, and culinary imagination, food has become a real point of contention: You use margarine instead of butter? Your lettuce isn't organically grown? You cook in a non-stick skillet? Your peanut butter has corn syrup in it? You buy milk from the grocery store? Your bread comes in a plastic bag? Don't you know the myriad sins you've committed (you hard-hearted, environmentally insensitive, nutritionally ignorant food-heathen)?

The way people sometimes talk, you'd think that eating the forbidden fruit was only a minor mistake when compared with the unforgivable crime of eating genetically modified apples. White flour and homogenized milk are the new hellfire and brimstone, and the only "sins" that ever come up in conversation seem to be related to chocolate cake. Everyone seems to be laboring under a burden of guilt that has more to do with transfats than with transgressions.

Just take a look at the way women's magazines are emblazoned with with "guilt-free" recipe headlines—right alongside "sinfully decadent" desserts.  And the absolution for all of our corn-syrupy trespasses? More food, of course.

I found this description on a cup of yogurt that I bought not long ago: "Spoon. Savor. Stretch. Sigh. Trust calming notes of lavender to satisfy the senses and soothe the soul."

Soothe the soul? Right. So if I'm crushed with Chicken McNugget guilt; if I'm sorrowing over pesticide sins; if I'm living in biotech fear, the solution to my guilt, sin and fear is...yogurt? Pardon me while I search for the nearest complimentary air sickness bag. The yogurt was tasty, but the quasi-religious marketing pitch makes me rather sick.

And yet… This food-based salvation message does appear to be just near enough to the truth to make it particularly persuasive to our spiritually vapid culture. I know that organic brown rice will not save my soul from damnation in the lake of fiery fryer grease, but at the same time, food and drink are very near the true Salvation message: Body broken (bread broken); Blood shed (wine poured). True Gospel is all tied up with a meal.

We are all hungry, I think, for the True Bread. But the problem is that we think we can find it at the Co-Op bakery. And so the Co-Op bakery suddenly takes on an importance far beyond providing a nice bagel to go with our morning coffee.

The True Bread unites us.  But we have we allowed Wonder Bread to divide us. We're too busy cat-fighting about the Nutrition Facts printed on the side of the package (Package? What package?) to rejoice in what we have so bountifully received. We let ourselves complain about our spouses, lie on our taxes, ignore our kids, and gossip about our neighbors. But God forbid that we should allow any government subsidized corn product to cross our lips.

In other words, our priorities are all in a big tangle.

We've stepped beyond dietary prudence into the realm of dietary paranoia. My most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living has a whole article devoted to identifying "dangerous" produce and encouraging me to check 5-digit barcodes for the demonic number 8. I talked to one mother who won't serve cake at her kids' birthday parties because of all the empty calories and refined whatnots it contains. We're all so worried about staying alive that we're forgetting how to live.

I may, possibly, be two percent more likely to have thyroid problems if I eat a Twinkie than if I abstain. But I know for a fact that I'm thousands of times more likely to be hit by a bus if I leave the house than if I were to stay in bed all day. But does that keep me from stepping out the door? Hardly. I have a life to live.

Ah, there's the rub. That's the thing about living: It'll kill you. But who of you by worrying can add a single day to your life?

Instead of worrying and feeling guilty over eating hot dogs rather than hummus, I should be thanking God for the joy and unity that comes from sharing food of all sorts around a table. To paraphrase Proverbs, better is a dinner of hot dogs and Cheetos where love is than a bowl of sustainably grown quinoa with hatred. I am not going to hyperventilate over what I eat. My salvation does not depend upon it. So after breathing into a brown paper bag for a few minutes, lets fill that brown paper bag with lunch, shall we?

God's bounty is vast enough to include Cheetos and chèvre, hot dogs and hummus. There's a whole world of flavors and textures—of edible joy—left to be discovered, and I'm never going to sample more than the minutest fraction of it before I die. (This is one of the many reasons to look forward to the resurrection of the body and not just the immortality of the soul; my taste buds will live into eternity. Glory.) Food, in its rightful role, is a blessing and a delight.

Therefore, under the disapproving gaze of the black-and-white GNC gods, I can laugh with ketchuppy lips and lick salty orange fingers with my children. Contrary to popular belief, I am allowed to eat my Cheetos with joy and drink my Diet Coke with a merry heart. A merry heart, after all, doeth good like a medicine.