I had originally thought that I would write this blog on some I food like ice cream or Italian ice or ice pops, but this morning after having enjoyed a feast of good foods with friends last night I woke up thinking about indigestion. Indigestion is one of those things that many of us have experienced, especially during the holiday season, but rarely talk about when experienced. Perhaps in part because it often times is accompanied by other things that we do not like to publicly talk about such as flatulence (aka farts, gas, bootie burp, or butt thunder). Even telling my family what I was writing about this morning made them a bit uncomfortable. When I shared I was writing about indigestion because in part we rarely talk about it, my wife replied, “and there is a reason for that.”
Indigestion usually comes about because of overeating or eating too fast without chewing. Slow eaters, however, aren’t in the clear either. Indigestion also can be brought on by food allergies, lack of exercise, drinking too much alcohol, smoking, medicines such as aspirin, improperly cooked food, and finally, stress and anxiety. In other words, there is something about what we are ingesting, how we are ingesting, or what we are doing associated with ingestion that creates indigestion.
Isn’t this situation true of our spiritual lives as well. We can sit down and feast on some rich spiritual information, but if we take in too much, or try to ingest it too fast, we can experience spiritual indigestion. If we do not exercise what we say we believe in our lives, we can experience spiritual indigestion. Spiritual indigestion occurs anytime we agree with spiritual understandings but do not practice them. We can read, study, and have all the conversations we want about spirituality, but if we are not incorporating them into our lives, then we are not receiving the benefits.
What do you need to do in your life to move from theory to practice. As Michael Bernard Beckwith wrote in Spiritual Liberation, “If you merely collect spiritual information without practicing it, all you will develop is a case of spiritual indigestion and constipation.”