Somewhere in our minds there is this belief that if we are hungry we need to feed ourselves or get someone to feed us. Hunger becomes something bad, something to be avoided, something that needs to be satisfied whenever it appears. It’s perfectly natural. We need to eat to survive. It is also a social courtesy. If you see a friend, one of the first things you may do is to say: “You want something to drink? Are you hungry?” It is also even more deeply imbedded in our social structure: “I was without shelter, and you took me in; I was hungry and you fed me.” It is almost a religious and moral obligation to feed someone who is hungry. Food kitchens in multiple communities provide sustenance for those who are destitute. That’s great. They should do that.
It is as if we are on a mission to eliminate this bad thing, hunger, in our society. In a society where food is plentiful, we are encouraged to satisfy our hunger whenever it appears. There are so many delicious and tempting products that we want to try them all. Frequently, that is exactly what we do. What is the result? Whoops. We be fat. We be real fat. We be in trouble because we eat too much. Our cholesterol levels are up to the ceiling. Our hearts are encased in globs of fat. Our bodies are so big our heats, kidneys and lungs are struggling to keep up. Our blood pressures are shooting up to the ceiling in an attempt to keep all this extra tissue perfused. Then what happens? We lose about 20 or 30 years of productive life we should have, and are miserable while we are here. Our arteries are clogging shut, our hearts are scarring from the strain, our kidneys are leaking while they shut off, and we have an epidemic of diabetes because our pancreas glands can’t keep up with the load.
Maybe we need to rethink this problem. Maybe we need to look at the root of the obesity problem in our society. Maybe we need to think of hunger in a different way. Maybe, in fact, hunger is a good thing. Maybe hunger should be stressed for periods of time. Maybe each of us should do fasting on a regular basis. Maybe this thing that we thought was bad is, in fact, one of the best things for us, if we use it right. Maybe it is one of the best tools we have to stay healthy. Now, that’s a radical thought; one would certainly not get that impression traveling down the city street, with food billboards following us all the way.
We will submit that, in order to say healthy, most of us will have to accept moderately long periods of hunger. Exercise is not enough by itself. It is very important to exercise on a regular basis, but that by itself will not keep us healthy. In order to stay healthy, we have to keep our bodies in the best working order that we can. That means keeping an ideal weight. That means accepting periods of hunger as normal and good for us. A little bit of asceticism will do wonders for our health. Self-restraint is a wonderful tool to carry with us throughout our lives.
We would love to see billboards traveling down fast food alley that tout the great rewards of hunger, just as much as there are billboards full of fast food temptations. It’s like everything else in our lives; we have to achieve balance. If there is a lot of eating, there should be a lot of hunger to balance it out. Moments of hunger make camaraderie over a meal that much more fun.
The arbitrary God of Chance is watching us every second of every day. He has given us only one life and one body in this life. If we don’t take care of the one body God gave us, no one else will do it for us. There is no other life. There is only this one life, and this one chance to do something worthwhile in life. We get only one chance to do it right. Our impersonal God will take our life in a flash, without remorse, if we do not take care of this precious body gift given to us.