A Few More Pounds to Go Toward Life

I've plateaued. In early January I kept my New Year's resolution and saw my doctor for a physical. Et al. When all was said and done, things turned out pretty well. One secondary doctor even pronounced me "perfect" -- at least one part of me. But my Internist reported a few imperfections. Some "numbers", he observed, are slightly outside the desirable range. "I could put you on medication," he began, "but" -- and here he looked curiously at me, or skeptically -- "the better course would be to lose some weight." Ah! Here we go.

I was prepared for it, and knew I was overdue for it. Over the past year I had jumped a pant size. I wasn't happy about it, generally avoided the mirror, and vigilantly avoided the scales. But the facts were hardly obscure. So why hadn't I started? I suppose I had simply gotten comfortable. One could, I suppose, even say "lazy." A more careful assessment might reveal "obligation fatigue." As happens, from time to time, I have gotten over committed. There are more things I have to do -- meetings I am obligated to attend, reports I am obligated to write, relations I am required to nurture -- than I really have time to do. It's my own fault. As a co-worker once observed, I have a faulty "No" switch. I've said "Yes" too often. But however it came to be, the thought of coming home at night -- or getting up still earlier in the morning, or thinking about one more "essential element" in between -- to satisfy one more obligation... "Please just let me rest."

But somehow it ceased to be an obligation. Suddenly it was taking personal care -- like honoring a day off or protecting adequate quiet time. And all in all, losing weight is comparatively simple -- eat less, eat better, exercise more. Simple, but not necessarily easy.

But easy or not, I have been doing pretty well. I have not missed a day of exercise since I left the doctor's office. And more than just token activity. I have been working at it. And while eating habits still have room for improvement, I'm making progress. But I have noticed a pattern. Change is more episodic than steady. The first five pounds dropped quickly. I grew confident, then smug. But then the bathroom scales seemed to freeze. Days went by, and then a week. Then, as though a cord had been plugged in, the needle again began to move. Another three, four, five, and then...another screeching halt.

And that's the way it's been. Progress, plateau. Progress, plateau.

I think about that pattern here in the early weeks of Lent, when spiritual vitality is the focus of attention. We pray more frequently and conscientiously; we pay more attention in worship; we pick up and use devotional guides. And it helps...for awhile. We feel and breathe and root a little deeper, until spiritually we hit another kind of plateau. A drought seems to bake the heart that only days before had beat with such fervor. Discouragement follows, and then more life-giving rain. Progress, plateau. Progress, plateau.

All of which reminds me that both of these categories are more lifestyle than diet. It isn't for a season, and then I go back to my previous habits; it is assembling the routines and habits, practices and norms that sustain a different way of life.

The benchmarks may be useful goals -- 20 lbs, 25 lbs, through the Bible in a year -- but the living is the point. Wonderfully, fruitfully real living.