The Spiritual Buffet

Buffet is well liked in Singapore. Most of us enjoy eating and variety. Buffet hits the jackpot. When we step into the restaurant, we see the variety of mouth watering food. I always hit the dessert counters first whenever I go for buffets. Life is just like a buffet. We are bombarded by so many choices daily. Simple things like whether we choose to stay back at the office to work or go home and spend more time with the family at home are the choices that we have to make. And, all these choices are made based on our preferences, values and priorities. Sometimes, we may be so overwhelmed by so many decisions to be made and activities going around endlessly that we may fall sick, just like how we try to stuff food into our stomach with limited space and suffer from indigestion later on. We are still human beings afterall with our own limited capacity.

The world is very attractive with its material luxuries waiting to lure us everyday. Imagine all your desired items are waving at you to get them home. Just like at buffet, the marinated and well cooked meat and fattening desserts are waiting to get into our stomach. Too much of them in the long run will result in sickness like high cholestrol  level, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. God has never mentioned that we can't enjoy the material comfort. I believe that since God allows these material comfort and luxuries to exist, they are meant to be enjoyed. However, the question is 'To what extent do we enjoy these material wants and yet not indulging at the expense of everything else?'

At buffet, it is always good to have some fruits and vegetables and water for balance beside taking in the rubbish. These fruits and vegetables and water will help us to clear all the rubbish from our bodies in the end due to the fibre in them. Therefore, spiritual life must come in to balance our lives so that we will not indulge so much into the material world that we get ourselves corrupted by the worldly values, losing our spiritual lives. How do we find these spiritual vegetables and fruits and water? These are none other than our sacraments and scriptures and teachings. They are meant to purify us spiritually so that we may not stray too far away from God. The ten commandments are meant to be acting like a healthy diet menu for us to keep ourselves healthy. They are meant to free us from the spiritual diseases. Sins are just like viruses which attack us spiritually when we are strayed by the worldly values such as it is good to possess more and more of money (regardless of moral values), going higher up the social status (while hurting others), etc. When we are not careful, we will fall sick. Such sickness manifest in the forms of divisons in the community, bad fruits of hatred, anger, destruction, wars, death, etc.  They will spread to others through our wilful and destructive actions, words and behaviour like plagues.

God is the spiritual Nutritionist and Physician. He knows what is the best for us. There must be a balance in our lives. Of course, God has never asked us to be puritans where we abstain ourselves from all the material wants and comforts, neither does He want us to be epicureans who only seek material indulgence.  When we keep close to God by spending time with Him regularly, we are allowing time for ourselves to monitor our spiritual health and seek guidance from God to make appropriate adjustments to our spiritual health, such as going for a retreat when we are getting too drained out or going for Taize Prayer for some peace to our racing minds, etc. We allow God to heal us slowly through the sacraments and His Word when we are hurt by the others and matters in the harsh world. He also heal us through people when we need spoken words and concrete loving actions to tenderize us through our five senses. We need one another to remind us and advise us to to stay close to God.

Only God knows what we need the best. We don't have to stuff ourselves like gluttons to death. All things and people come as gifts from God and He will know when it is apppropriate to give us the things and people at different times for us to enjoy and digest properly. If it is meant to be for us, nobody can snatch it away from us. God can never be confined. Someimes, by seemingly losing certain things and people, God is giving us something greater. We can't possibly stomach everything. It alludes to we have to pass out the waste for other food to get into our bodies to give us the necessary nutrition. Our bodies need different nutrients at different stages. For instance, we may need more vitamin C now to build up immune system as we have just recovered from flu and we may need more iron to replenish our blood after losing blood from injuries later on. We just need to have the faith of a 'mustard seed' in God to give us the food that we need gradually. Only God knows the best. Trust yourself completely in God and you will stay young and healthy where the radiance comes from the Light within without any Botox from the world.

With Love,
Elena