Tuesday 26 June 2001

Pic of the day: I took a walk just past ten in the evening. Not bad - actually it looked even brighter to my eyes than to the camera. The temperature was just perfect, too. Only my heart was restless ...

God sees your diary

Well, it sure seems God is reading my journal. Yesterday I wrote about the battle against bulging bellies. Today in the lunch break I saw a tourist with a camera on his stomach. And what a stomach. His belly was so grossly distended that I wondered how it could avoid simply dropping off him and falling to the ground. Certainly there is no way he could tie his own shoelaces. If a pregnant woman had looked like that, she'd be months overdue.

And I realized again how lean and fit most people are around here. Eventually I also realized what a cruel joke it must seem for those struggling with real obesity to read my musings about how to handle a quite normal midlife bulge. I hereby extends my apologies. I still think lives will be longer and healthier if most people stay a bit more fit than the current trend, but it could certainly have been said more tactfully.

***

I don't really look down on fat people, like thinking they are just weak-willed gluttons. Well, I don't particularly ask them for advice on health matters, that I don't. But I know that the desires of the body are a hard thing to handle for many of us.

I remember when I was still taking my penicillin last fall, and could eat almost nothing before my guts would twist like angry snakes inside me. I walked through the supermarket and the food on the shelves almost cried out to me. It looked so very good, even stuff I don't usually bother to look at twice.

Now that I can eat what I want, there are other things that excite me more. Not just of the body, but of the soul too. Like a GoType keyboard for my Cassiopeia E-125. Yes, I've been lusting for one again. I wonder how long I can resist, now that I've got my tax refund. Even though actually my hand hurts so much that I have a hard time even typing this. The mind is not as easily satisfied as the body.

***

On my way home from work, I came across an earthworm who for some reason was trying to cross the road. It was covered in sand and already starting to get darker than usual, its movement slower. It was a rather big earthworm, and I found it gross and disgusting. I used a small twig to carefully lift it up and dump it in the shadow on the other side of the road, the way it was headed but would hardly have arrived.

It seemed the right thing to do, for I often feel that I am in the same position before God. Like a creepy little worm who has done something stupid and dangerous rather than staying where I should be.