Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Coming up swinging...


Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
-Psalm 51:10 (NASB)

My husband & I are doing a 24 day ‘cleanse’.  Yes we are aware that there are 3, 5 & 10 days cleanses available to us. But apparently, we like living on the edge. Embracing the extreme. There is no shortage of crazy going on around here I can tell you that for sure.





I have to admit that initially, I was kind of looking at the whole cleansing thing as a ‘flare over the bow’ so to speak. We’ve been concerned for a long time that our jobs & schedules have left our bodies unhealthy, overweight & exhausted. We just needed a little jump start to healthy eating & exercising & sleeping again.

Enter…  “THE CLEANSE”... how hard could it be right?

Before we started, I had visions of Chuck & I shopping side by side at the farmers market, filling our reusable cloth bags with delightful produce & range free, grass fed meat... cooking deliciously gourmet meals… sipping lemon & mint infused water as we lounged around in workout clothes… after we took a nice leisurely walk hand in hand down the Wobegon trail of course.

Yes, I see now where I went wrong here. Don’t judge. I was after all, bloated & filled with toxins from all the processed foods I had been eating.

Or maybe, I just selectively forgot that we still had to live our normal day to day & that following ‘THE CLEANSE’ meant no coffee, no sugar, no breads, no dairy, no soda, no alcohol… aka no melt in your mouth deliciousness… no fun… no nothing.

I digress.

Today as I sit down to write this on my morning break, we are on day 10. I’m all settled in to gather my thoughts over a mug of organic herbal tea & handful of unsalted natural almonds. Suddenly the smell of fresh coffee & some kind of fabulous homemade baked good is wafting over the top of my cubicle. GAH! While I have to admit that I haven’t had a headache from my borderline addiction to coffee (this is probably due to the supplements we are taking), I really, really miss it. Like a lot.

My husband however, is thriving on this new regimen. He bounces out of bed in early morning to begin concocting the potion we must drink before we begin our day. When I stagger from the bedroom a few minutes later, I find him chatting away & whisking eggs for our veggie omelets… I love the eggs & him but I scowl at him anyway. It’s too early for chatter without coffee.

Here is a conversation we have the 3rd morning & after I can’t take one more sip of the dreaded fiber drink any more…

Me (glowering into the glass): “Ewe. Seriously.”
Chuck: “Mine tastes great.”
Me (now glowering at him): “How lucky for you.”
Chuck: “How bad can it be?”
Me: “So bad.”
Chuck: “Let me see.”
He snatches my glass & takes a nice long pull.
Chuck: “UGH! That is disgusting!”
Me (satisfied but still glowering alternately between him & the glass): “Yes Captain Obvious. This. This is what I have been telling you.”
Chuck (sweetly): “Wow babe. Attitude.”




In that moment, I had a choice. A choice to end his life & discretely dispose of his body or to bite my tongue. I bit it. Let me tell you, this was nothing short of a miracle all things considered. But despite how hungry or tired or coffee deprived I am, I’m no dummy. My husband is the strongest, kindest most compassionate person I know, & not to mention super cute.  I think I’ll keep him.

Back to the 'cleanse'... here’s the kicker.  That guy loves the rest of the program too. The ‘potions’, the fiber, the herbal supplements, the many liters of water, the weight loss, how good his body feels. I however, hate it. I’m not gonna lie… I do like how my body feels too or at least I do after day three.  I will spare you the gory details of what kind of havoc that that stupid fiber drink wreaked upon my unsuspecting body. Yes I know that I probably was just full up to my eyeballs with deadly toxins that needed to be purged but that is beside the point. To be honest, I just don’t like to be told what to eat, when to eat, how much to  eat. It throws off my groove man & makes me feel stifled.  You might as well pin my free spirit to the ground with stakes… of celery.

I know in my head that what we are doing is good for us & I’m confident in the end, we will feel better & will have more energy. It’s just… my body, my free spirit… for reasons that mostly likely make little sense, are rebelling.

This reminds me that this rebellion thing is kind of a weakness for me. I love all things anti-establishment. I like to follow my own path. To move to the beat of my own drum. My husband frequently teases that if I had lived in the 70’s & didn’t know Jesus, I’d have been a hippie.  Love, peace, happiness plus poetry readings & guitar music in dark coffee houses while wearing boots & something remotely resembling my gramma’s afghan? Ugh duh…Of course I would've been.

& yet, I know that this same free-spirited personality trait sometimes trickles over into my spiritual life. I very often find myself questioning God on things that I KNOW He wants me to do or fighting Him on things that make me super uncomfortable. Like rules. Or confrontation. Or accountability. Or give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

I mean, the body cleanse is ‘good’ but I’m suddenly very much aware that what I might need more is a soul cleanse…

The late Keith Green, my all time favorite worship song writer & leader in the Jesus People movement once wrote this amazing song:

Rushing wind blow through this temple,
Blowing out the dust within,
Come and breathe your breath upon me,
I've been born again.


Holy Spirit, I surrender, take me where you want to go,
Plant me by your living water,
Plant me deep so I can grow.


Jesus, you’re the one, who sets my spirit free,
Use me Lord, glorify, your Holy Name through me.


Separate me from this world Lord.
Sanctify my life for you.
Daily change me to your image,
Help me bear good fruit.


Every day you're drawing closer.
Trials come to test my faith.
But when all is said and done Lord,
You know, it was worth the wait.


Jesus, you’re the one, who set my spirit free,
Use me Lord, glorify, your Holy Name through me.
Rushing wind blow through this temple,
Blowing out the dust within,
Come and breathe your breath upon me,
For I've been born again.



So yeah… 
about that whole physical cleanse thing…
I got nothing else to say really…
Camping out here instead for a while...


“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. 
Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. 
This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.” 
–Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

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