Beauty Tips for Ministers

Food For Thought: Forgiving Our Own Trespasses

Sweetlings,

Let me depart from the world of crazy celebrity/royal fashion and eye cream recommendations for a moment to talk about self-care a bit.

I was talking with a newbie minister the other day who was being very hard on herself for “breaking the covenant” she had made with God to be healthy and especially to refrain from compulsive overeating.

As you know, PeaceBang knows PUH-LENTY about compulsive overeating, and about the struggles to keep from comforting oneself with an overly-full tummy.

This new pastor had had some particularly tough losses in the past months and was experiencing for the first time ministering when you’re feeling fragile and pulled in seventeen different directions, trying to meet too many people’s needs. She ate over it. Lots of sugar. And not only did she physically feel lousy, she felt like a sinner. We mulled over her decision to use the word “sin” to describe her overeating. Yes, technically it is a sin to do harm, even to oneself. But is that language helpful or harmful in this situation? She had chosen it intentionally because she wanted to think about her binge theologically. Which is a good place to start. What we do with our bodies is most certainly about our relationship to God and our understanding and experience of God’s presence or absence in our lives. We are all broken; we are all sinners. When we use the word “sin” to express the sense of our own brokenness, does that seem like condemnation or does it invite compassion and reconciliation?

I asked her, “If you had a friend who was hurting herself in some way because she was under so much stress, would you consider her a sinner?” As it turns out, no. She would have compassion for that hypothetical friend. She would try to support her.

The point here is pretty obvious but let me make it anyway: although it’s true that some clergy persons are sick little bundles of denial, engaging in secret, dysfunctional and destructive behaviors that will harm themselves and their congregations, my experience informs me that most of us are painfully aware of our failures, shortcomings and addictive tendencies and are, in fact, quite unforgiving about them. We are spiritual and professional perfectionists, many of us, trying not only to do the right things but to think the right thoughts and to have the right feelings. This is the aim of our spiritual disciplines — “God, make pure my heart within me” — “May my the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord my rock and my redeemer,” etc. Good God, kids, do you think the average investment banker, schoolteacher, hairdresser, waitress,retail clerk or engineer puts themselves through that kind of rigorous self-policing throughout the day? Hells no!

Pigeons, forgive yourselves. Put down the chocolate bar, the pizza, the pastries or whatever it is that plagues and poisons you, wipe off your mouth with a nice napkin, and move on. You can always flagellate yourself later, after you’ve had a nice long walk, a bath and a cup of peppermint tea. Why kick yourself when you’re down (or on a bad “up” from too much sugar, fat and carbs)? What good does that do you, and how does that honor your covenant with God?

I myself, after finally having hit the 20+ lbs. lost mark last Saturday, am having a bad week with food. And why wouldn’t I? The weather is dreary, I’ve been seriously crampy and headachy for days, my lower back hurts (I’m carrying tons of tension there but yoga poses are helping a lot), people I dearly love are terminally ill, in hospital with various other painful ailments and suffering other kinds of losses (and isn’t that always the case in parish ministry?). I’m post-Easter weary, I’m dreading my May sabbatical time (funny, in’t that?), I’m tired of being disciplined around food and I just want to eat huge bowls of Kashi cereal with dark chocolate chips in them. And so what. My job as I see it right now is to hang on to my little boat while the waves swell and crest, to weep freely as I need to, and to monitor my eating not for Weight Watchers compliance right now but just to assure that my eating doesn’t go from Tired Girl Indulging territory into Good Lord, All Hell Has Broken Loose and Now She’s Into Serious Buffalo Wing Abuse territory.

No, I won’t get to the gym today, either. I’ll get there tomorrow and both God and I will forgive me for it. If I gain a pound, that’s a trespass that can be forgiven, too.

Being beautiful, vibrant and polished as a public religious leader does not mean achieving perfection. It means being alive in God’s presence and unafraid to communicate that presence to a broken world. If today all you can manage is to lay your burden down and rest in God’s care, do it. You’ll know you need to when you find yourself too exhausted to apply mascara or to properly comb your hair. Be careful out there, my lovely ones. Attend to yourself as you would a visiting dignitary, with all due respect and hospitality. For if you do not, your psyche and your body will go out together for coffee without you and devise mischievous schemes to get your attention.

Put down the donuts, back away from the ciggies, get back to a 12-step meeting for over-spending, overeating, alcoholism, sex or drug addiction, stop being a superhero. Toss the M&M’s in the trash, smash the Doritos and run water over them, douse the ice cream with kosher salt. Unplug the phone, cancel a meeting, ask for help. Delegate, see your therapist, let God run the world for a day without you.

God has made a good gift in you. Love yourselves, forgive the sins, and move on. Better yet, move to the bed and take a nap.

Make Sure You Eat Enough!!

I’m going to try to write this post in a mature, nurturing manner although I feel like having a stomping fit and slamming my little cowboy boots all over the house, followed by a bout of yelling and crying on the floor (complete with pounding fists).

It’s just that, you see, I joined Weight Watchers in early December and I’ve been very devoted to it. The results have been very positive. You go to a meeting, you get “weighed in” (like a truck), they hand you your little booklet, you attend a meeting where you learn fascinating things like how to make pumpkin mousse, and everyone claps for each other for losing 1/8 of an oz. or whatever. I did a brief stint in WW during my college years and loathed it — I felt starved all the time and I hated the meetings — but now I can cook, I’m not going to let the wacky sitcom atmosphere of the meetings get to me, and I’m trying to learn how to eat like a person who isn’t a compulsive overeater. I carry my little POINTS PLAN book around with me, I am really trying to learn how fattening things are, and what a regular portion looks like. Along the way, I want to drop some pounds. I’m willing to take my time, I’m not thinking about it constantly, I have a great Online Ministry Posse to write to when I need moral support, all is well, etc. and bla bla bla.

So I step on the scale tonight expecting to see a significant loss of butter and the gal goes, “Here you go. You lost one pound.” And I go, “WHAT?” She sees my face fall down somewhere around my ankles and she calls over a leader (on nametag: “I LOST 29 LBS IN 1998″) who asks me these questions:

Leader: Did you eat all your allowed points?
Me: NO!! I was so busy and I didn’t have time to keep track, so I just ate little bits of things and lots of vegetables — I did go to restaurants but I did really well, I think, I know that on a couple of days I ate quite a bit less than I was allowed.
Leader: Did you work out?
Me: YES! Four times this week! I did cardio, I lifted weights, I sweated! I drank lots of water!
Leader: But you didn’t eat more to allow for that, right?
Me: No, I just figured I’d lose more weight if I didn’t use the points earned during exercise.
Leader: Did you use up your 35 flex points?
Me: No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Leader: You know what happened? YOU DIDN’T EAT ENOUGH THIS WEEK!! And your body probably thought it was starving, and it slowed down your metabolism to compensate. You have to eat all your points. Eat more when you exercise, and use your flex points.
Me: This is the first time in my life anyone has ever told me to eat more. Except for my Baba, God rest her soul.

So kids, the moral of this stupid moment in my life is that if you’re on a weight loss program, don’t be all Diet Ninja about it and starve yourself. Eat enough food, okay? Get your fruits and veggies in there, and enough hydration, and if you’ll excuse me now I’m going to have half a cup of pumpkin ice cream with dark chocolate chips mixed in.

Ordained Compulsive Overeaters, Unite! Announcing The Online Ministry Posse

Self-care DOES seem to be the theme on BTFM lately, doesn’t it? And as Martha would say, that’s a good thing, because no matter how fabulous our outfits, shoes, hair, make-up and grooming, if there’s an uncared-for person underneath all that, we’re no good to ourselves, our families, our communities or our God.

Caught ya! You didn’t think PeaceBang would suggest that we EVER not good to God, did you? That wouldn’t be very Universalist of her, would it?? God doesn’t need us to be good to ourselves in order to love us. Let’s remember that.

PeaceBang is undertaking the journey of addressing her compulsive overeating with the help of Weight Watchers and is shocked and awed by how easily she was putting away 6-7 servings of perfectly healthy food at every meal, and sometimes between meals. You should have seen me last night measuring out my chicken chili into little freezer bags and saying, “OH HELL NO, I can eat that much in ONE BITE!!” As my regular readers know, food is PeaceBang’s drug of choice, and a full tummy is for her a calming and security-enhancing feeling, except when it’s an overly-full tummy in which case she gets remorseful and heart-burny.

Overeating is no big deal and PeaceBang doesn’t like to pathologize it too much. We live in a fat, food-oriented society, we all have lots of occasions to over-eat (and we do), and we spend far too much time agonizing about calories and dress/pants sizes when we ought to be focusing on more important issues. We’re all good and tired of the constant media trumpeting about the OBESITY EPIDEMIC, and no one needs another diet plan or magic pill or weight-loss reality show to talk about around the water cooler.

All that said, and with no promises to succeed, I am feeling the effects of the 100 lbs. I’ve gained since 10th grade and have come to the realization that I cannot and will not lose weight without a system of accountability and a program to follow. The statistics for successful weight loss are poor, I know, but my goals are simple: learn to eat like a normal person (”normal” defined as someone who eats until they’re satisfied and then stops without having an upset, deprived little fit in their head about it) and stop using food to reward and calm.

I took a little spin back to the 12-step Overeaters Anonymous community and was so repulsed by the piety of it and by the pathologizing of a perfectly common behavior (this offends me far more than the cheerleadery, brainless Weight Watchers messages one has to endure at meetings), not to mention the tendency of women in OA meetings to have no feminist consciousness whatsoever, that I’m going to try to create a community of support here online.

Lizard Eater started a blog called The Weight of the World awhile ago and it’s very good, but I’m looking for people who might be willing to receive e-mails from me and just to listen — and in exchange I will offer pastoral support to you with your own issues (which need not be overeating). The idea here is that instead of going to the fridge and freaking out over what I can’t have, I can whip off an e-mail to a member of my Online Ministry Posse and know that someone real will read it and care, even if they have nothing to say but “Keep at it, kid.” We promise to pray for each other. We will offer no advice unless it is specifically requested, and that includes diet tips. We will refrain in all ways from competitiveness or comparisons. Our purpose is to have a safe place to express feelings that aren’t appropriately aired elsewhere for fear of irritating those we love most.

All correspondences will be treated with pastoral confidentiality.

Who’s in?

[Udate: Due to demand, the Ordained Overeaters Online Ministry Posse is closed for now. Thanks for your interest and if I can figure it out, I will try to create something easier to access and moderate than e-mails. Blessings on all your health and self-care efforts. - PB, 12/11/07]

Smoked Spanish Paprika

Dianne mentioned smoked paprika in the last comments section and I felt compelled to echo her sentiment that this is the best and most fabulous ingredient of the year!! Without a doubt, the container of El Rey De La Vera that I brought back from Spain in 2006 has been the most exciting addition to la cuisine de PeaceBang.

I just ordered four tins of it to give out at Christmas with two of my best recipes: one for chicken wings and the other for a rice-pepper-kielbasa sensation that I invented. Neither of these recipes are low-salt or low-fat, that’s for sure! I will henceforth take it as a personal challenge to create some recipes that use lots of vegetables and no salt-heavy add-ins.

Meanwhile, get yourself some of this heavenly stuff and experiment! I like the hot version (picante) but I’m sure that dulce (sweet) is delicious, too.

Sodium Queen

Honeybuns with sugar on top,
o help me out here. What are some of your favorite low-sodium and vegetable-oriented recipes?

I know Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth, but we don’t have to eat so much of it!

Kiss of peace, and of health,
PB

[Update of 11/19 6 pm:

Thank you for all the comments, and keep them coming! I think the issue is that I hate preparing salads and have not expanded my thinking often enough beyond Salad Is Our Only Vegetable Option mentality.
It’s a weird thing. I love to cook but HATE preparing salads. I think I associate salad with my mom and feel emotionally poverty-stricken preparing them for myself when Mom does it so much better. My salads seem bland and dirt-tasting compared to hers, and I HATE eating cold lettuce. HATE it with an irrational hate! In the summer I’ll keep a little basket of farmers market cherry tomatoes on the counter and eat them for snacks, but in the winter I don’t keep any vegetables around to snack on (and I’m afraid that even fruit gets ignored in the bowl). So I appreciate the reminder of how much I love roasted root vegetables and am going to get some and cook ‘em up. To the reader who suggested frozen veggies, ABSOLUTELY. They are quite healthy because they’re flash frozen immediately upon harvest and since I buy organics, they’re pesticide free. I need to put them at the front of the freezer and incorporate more of them into my chilis and casseroles. Kiss of peace and love, PB]

Update on Eating

Hi dolls,

Just an update on the self-care, summer R&R front.

I have been home for six days and have spent that time mostly sleeping, getting up and thinking a lot about the fact that I really should be exercising/cleaning/organizing/planning and then sleeping more and watching movies or TV. TV is FUNNY! I love “The Golden Girls!” I didn’t do anything involving people who know me until today. I fell asleep in the hammock this afternoon reading the Harvard Divinity Bulletin.
Newsflash: I am eating about half of what I usually do.

Here’s how the eating thing works:
I make sure to have a smoothie for breakfast.
I have iced coffee, my favorite summer food.

When I get hungry in the afternoon, I put a bunch of healthy things on the counter and make a little plate of it and then eat that.
I sit at the kitchen table and ask myself, “Are you still hungry?”
I decide that I don’t know. So I decide to wait. I say to myself, “Well, we have all the time in the world because we’re on vacation now.”
I wait for awhile to see if I’m hungry and decide I’m not.

I go do some stuff for a bunch of hours until I feel hungry again. I go make another plate of small healthy things. I eat a bunch of whatever I want to until I don’t feel hungry any more. Then I stop.

My thoughts on this:

1. I’m not trying to make “meals.” Meals are intimidating. I don’t feel like dealing with MEALS like lunch, dinner, etc. There’s too much pressure. I prefer my little plates of stuff.

2. I am learning that I have no idea if I’m full or hungry most of the time, and mistake tiredness for hunger on a very consistent basis. Going back for seconds is all about the taste of the food and the sedative effect of a very full stomach. If I am well-rested and calm, I don’t need the sedative effect. I am battling this habit.

3. No more snacks out of bags while reading. Bad, bad habit. Boy, do I love eating salty crunchy things out of bags while reading. Boy, do I have to stop that forever.

4. I eat whatever I darn well please, but it goes on a little plate. I find that I love these little plates of things. It feels very European to me, or like I’m always at a party.

5. Keeping lots of fruits and vedjables in the house at all times. Easy to do in the summer.

So darling ones, how YOU doon?