yes = no

I just read a wonderful Daily Meditation that was just the inspiration I needed. I'm feeling really stuck and unmotivated in the new year and just pretty much bleh, especially concerning my spirituality. So I was surprised to have an email spark something in me today.

The underlying message was this: Christianity has moved a long way from what Jesus instructed as a path for our lives. He was all about our lifestyle--how we interact with the world--which is something we have to work on each day. It never ends. Unfortunately, we have made Christianity more about "what I believe" (or don't believe for that matter), which involves no action. We can live inside our heads forever and have no real life change as a result. I like the idea of thinking about Christianity as a lifestyle, rather than a list of "Yep--believe that" and "Nope--can't go with you on this one."

Of course, I have to relate this to food. There is a lifestyle component to food, too. I have set my lifestyle up in such a way to accommodate my food choices. It's important to me to know where my food comes from, to prepare my own food, and to share it around the table with people I love. It takes planning and work everyday. Because I've said, "Yes" to this way of life, I have had to say, "No" to many things (like  McDonald's, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and a host of other things, but I digress). 

Same with an intentional Christian lifestyle choice. I have to work on it all the time. As I understand or encounter the Divine in a new way, my lifestyle changes in small ways or in dramatic, larger-than-life ways. It strikes me that this is what Jane was talking about when she mentioned that we have spiritual practices in our lives already. We just have to recognize and claim them as such. I've got to wake up to how I'm actually living and see if it is actually part of a Christian lifestyle.

Is 2010 my "Yes!" year? I've done a pretty good job claiming "Yes!" with exuberance and determination as it relates to my food. I'm ready to have that same zeal in defining and claiming my Christian lifestyle.