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Live Simply: The Gray Spaces

Living simply is about choosing to live in the gray spaces of life.

Yes, I know living in the gray sounds far more complex than living in the black and white. Living in the gray is not easy and can often be very confusing, but this is where I remind you "simple" in our context does not mean "easy".

Here's the black and white:

Tax collectors are corrupt. Tax collectors swindle and skim off the top. Tax collectors we do not associate with.

Adulterers are sinners. Adulterers have abused the gift of marriage. Adulterers have sinned against God and their bodies. Adulterers must be stoned.

Samaritans are half-breeds. Samaritans do not worship in the right place. Samaritans belong in their place and we go around. Samaritans we do not speak to.

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Choosing to Overcome

Last week's post on eating disorders and living in recovery with an eating disorder seemed to hit home with a lot of folk. I think because so many of us these days have been affected by an eating disorder in some way--either we know someone or know someone who knows someone or we ourselves live with one. And the likelihood is if you haven't been affected, you probably do know someone, you just don't know you know.

So let's be clear before we get any deeper into the conversation, when we talk eating disorders, we're not just talking teenage and early twenties girls anymore. More and more men are developing eating disorders (about 10% of diagnoses in the US), and the average age in women has become incredibly skewed as treatment centers are seeing a dramatic rise in the over 35 crowd and the average age a girl begins dieting has dropped to age 8.

All in all, when we talk eating disorders in the US, we're talking about 7 million women and 1 million men who have been diagnosed with an eating disorder. And I believe, millions more who have not been diagnosed.


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Sunday Servings: Campfire Chocolate Cake Oranges

I had the joy of camping last weekend in the Colorado wild with my Colorado girls.

Although it was the first time I have seen most of these ladies in more than four years, as the time stretched itself across the cool almost fall days of Rocky Mountain leisure, it felt like only a few days had passed since we last gathered around the table and shared our stories.

I was amazed, and yet not amazed at all, to hear and see and feel how much we've all grown and changed in the past years and yet still somehow retained the closeness of shared experience and shared stories and shared life. How we fell into a natural rhythm around that campfire without any of the awkwardness of absence. How easily we could discuss the deep and meaningful and how naturally we could pass into the absurd and nonsensical.

What I'm certain of is that these kind of friendships are a blessing in life.


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Live Simply: Being Available

Living simply is about making yourself available. Available to relationship. Available to the what is happening right in front of you.

In our Peace Corps training during the first two months of my years in South Africa, one of the things emphasized over and over again was greeting--greet properly and greet everyone. Fail to do that and one of your fellow villagers will write you off as the rude American who doesn't belong and shouldn't be here.

In black South African culture, greeting is what says to the other person--here you are, the person in front of me, and you are the most important person right now. Talking with you, acknowledging your presence in my day, hearing your stories, your woes, your joys. This is most important to me.

But this is hard for most Americans because our culture is time focused...

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The Story of Women Overcoming

I was told when I first arrived in South Africa that within the black cultures of the country when a woman looks at you with twinkling eyes and remarks, "you're getting fat," she means it as compliment. She means to say, I'm glad you are enjoying life and enjoying my country. She means to say, I'm glad you are happy and your are healthy. She means to say, I think you are beautiful.

But for my American ears it was so hard to hear.

It was so hard to accept those biting words that brought up all my insecurities, that reminded of all those years hating my body and hating myself, that recalled all those times I told myself I'll be complete when I was skinny--skinny and beautiful.

More than once I gently admonished, "Thank you for your compliment, but in my culture that is a hurtful thing to say." And I tried to erase the words and the fears they brought up and erase how much I hated them for saying it when I knew it wasn't true and I knew it was not the thing that defined me anymore.

But then there were the younger women. Women in their twenties and thirties. Women highly influenced by the Western media prevalent on their TV screens and streaming through their radios. Women who were beginning to see their bodies differently and the bodies of their peers differently. Women who when they said "you're getting fat" meant it not as a compliment but as a cutting, hurtful judgement.

These moments, the moments when one of my peers commented on my weight in judgement. These moments, when our Western polished, politeness didn't stop the cut from being said. These moments, my heart cried out in sorrow...

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Sunday Servings: Blueberry Cookies

Baking is an act of generosity. It is love and kindness and sorrow and hope baked into a loaf of generosity. Sunday Servings is an attempt to spread the generosity a little further by sharing stories and recipes. If you would like to share your own story or recipe, please do so in the comments section or you can tweet ideas to @AmandaEPeterson or share on my Facebook page.

***

It was apparently one of those comedy of errors kind of days.

I had invited a new friend over for coffee and decided to try a new recipe to go along with the new friendship--blueberry cookies.

It had to be blueberry something because sadly I had a few blueberries who had been banished, uneaten, to the freezer. Now they needed to be used up before freezer burn rendered them a complete waste.

So blueberry cookies, an old recipe I'd found which sounded like a great compliment to the rich aromatic pleasures of coffee.

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