"Gluttony - When is Enough, Enough?"

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Have you heard about the new Burger King breakfast sandwich? It's called the Enormous Omelet Sandwich, and it consists of one sausage patty, two eggs, two American cheese slices and three strips of bacon. That comes to 730 calories and 47 grams of fat. Now that's what I call gluttony! The only thing that could make it worse would be to put it between two super-sized donuts.

That sandwich is certainly not the exception. We are surrounded by fast, fattening food whose only purpose seems to be to fill our arteries with cholesterol and the bank accounts of investors, surgeons and funeral directors with  money.  You've heard the statistics: two-thirds of American adults are overweight, and about one in three is considered to be obese. Childhood obesity is at an all-time high.

A bigger tragedy is that while many Americans are overeating there are almost one billion people on this planet are malnourished and most of them are children.  Approximately 35,000 of them starve to death every day, and those that don't live in an absolute poverty that is so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human dignity.

Ironically a little over a billion people of the world are overweight, mostly in America and Europe.  So what do we do? We have almost one billion people in the world who are suffering from hunger and now over a billion who are suffering from overeating, so you would think the solution would be obvious: share!

And why not?  It's estimated that it would cost $17 billion a year to provide food, water, education, health and housing for everyone in the world. Do you know how much the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are costing the American people?  About one trillion dollars so far and they're estimated to eventually cost about three trillion dollars.

But here we are in the western world with only 20% of the world's population and yet we're gobbling up 85% of the world's resources, and the only sharing we do with the rest of the world is minimal compared to what we have.  What's wrong with us?  Why do we have to possess not only more than our share but so much that it's actually killing us?

We eat so much food that it kills us.  We use so much energy that the pollution is killing us and our planet.  And our soldiers are killing and being killed in Iraq, not for freedom and democracy but to feed our gluttonous lifestyle that is so dependent on oil.

I struggle with this reality as a member of the board of trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Project, especially since my visit to India almost two years ago.  I've been meeting with the Holdeen board this weekend, and when our discussions about all the problems in India of severe poverty and deprivation become too depressing, we talk about the partners we sponsor instead, and the incredible organizing being done with the poorest of the poor, and we became more optimistic and hopeful.

I'm especially excited that one of the most effective and dynamic organizers in India will be in this pulpit next Sunday.  I spent a week with Vivek Pandit at his headquarters outside of Mumbai, and I was extremely impressed by his leadership and personality.  I hope you'll be here to listen to his story.

There's much that needs to be done on a national level to keep our nation from being so gluttonous, but those changes will not be made until we let go of our gluttonous lifestyle.  BeliefNet.com has a quiz you can take called, “Are You a Glutton?” It states that, “Overeating is the easiest route to gluttony, but not the only way,” so they define gluttony as over consuming.  They include food questions, such as:

“In the airport you buy a jumbo bag of M&Ms for a two-hour flight.

1, The bag is empty before you push away from the gate

2. The bag is empty by the time you arrive

3. You have a few and save the rest to share with your ride”

Actually, I wouldn't buy the bag in the first place.  But most of the questions deal with other ways we over consume, such as: “How many televisions are in your household?”

By the way, my overall score came out as, “Spiritually, you might be a bit too thin,” which I guess means I need to live more simply.  But it's much better than the worst score, which is “The diner in hell has a corner reserved for you.”  It's a useful exercise to stop and reflect on how much each of us is consuming and how we can decrease our consumption.  It's also useful to contemplate why we consume so much.

Let's face it: most Americans are addicted to stuff.  We build bigger homes so we can have more room for all of our stuff.  We buy bigger cars so we can load more stuff into them.  Our attics, basements, closets and lives are overflowing with stuff, most of which we don't need and don't use.  In a song called, “Too Much Stuff,” Lyle Lovett sings:

“Big house, big car,
back seat, full bar.
Too much stuff.
It's just too much stuff...
You're never gonna get enough.
You can pile it high
but you'll never be satisfied.”

The real question, is why are millions of people so unhappy, so bored, so unfulfilled that they are driven to overeat, take drugs, and over-consume so they can blot out reality and get a bit of temporary relief from the stresses of life?  The cause for these addictions I believe is that people are trying to fill a void in their lives, an emptiness – whether it's loneliness, fear, or meaninglessness -- and they try to fill that void by filling up their lives with food, drugs, and stuff.  They think this will make them happy, but in reality the more they consume the less lasting happiness they experience.

You may have seen the NYT article earlier this year titled, “Happiness 101.”  It tells the story of a positive-psychology class at nearby George Mason University called the Science of Well-Being.  How many of you are students or graduates of George Mason?  Did you know it's one of the 15 unhappiest universities in the country?  The reason is that so many students are working and have families while they're going to school.

The professor of the class, Todd Kashdan, made “the distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure ― they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill ― and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness. The students had been asked first to do something that gave them pleasure and then to perform an act of selfless kindness. They approached the first part of the assignment eagerly. One student recounted having sex with her boyfriend 30 feet underwater while scuba diving. Another said he “...got hammered.” A third attended a Nascar race in North Carolina...

The article continues that “When it came time to talk about the second part of the assignment, the students were excited, too. The Nascar attendee, who was afraid of needles, gave blood. Another collected clothes from family members and donated them to a shelter for battered women. The boy who had gotten hammered bought a homeless person a 12-pack of “Natty Ice” at a 7-Eleven, wondering if it was the right thing to do. A fourth gave her waiter at Denny’s a $50 tip.”

I found it amazing that, “More than 200 colleges and graduate schools in the United States offer classes like the one at George Mason.”  Why didn't they have these courses when I was in college?  The results of positive psychology are not only impressive in the true happiness it brings but in the health and well-being that comes with it.  Studies have shown that positive emotions can correlate to a 10-year increase in life span.

These findings lend scientific support to the admonitions of spiritual leaders such as Saint Francis of Assisi, who said, 'For it is in giving that we receive.'  You can bet I'll remind you of that at the offering.  This is a universal truth that has been taught for millennium in most religious traditions, but it seems to be counter-intuitive in our materialistic culture.  We are flooded with messages – and an onslaught of Christmas catalogues this time of year -- proclaiming that we are what we buy, what we consume, what we devour.

I'm not preaching a new asceticism.  In fact, the same Saint Francis who gave away all of his possessions and lived a life of deprivation and duty, would eat little, begging for what food he did ingest, but if the food was too good he would pick up a handful of ashes and stuff them in his mouth.

I prefer sensuality to asceticism.  When I traveled to Italy this past summer with my family to celebrate my 60th birthday, one of the many joys of that trip was the sumptuous food, and I must confess to being a serious glutton.  I've never tasted better food, and I certainly ate more than my share.

But I noticed that few Italians were overweight, and very few were obese.  How do they do it with such delicious food?  I saw no evidence of ash eating.  In fact, they seemed to chow down with gusto.

When we returned home my wife Terry emailed me a NYT article that answered that question.  Titled, “How the Italian people manage to stay slim in the land of pizza and pasta,” Kathleen Zelman pointed out that a Mediterranean-style diet has many health benefits, from reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer, to living a longer life. But something must be getting lost in translation. Many of Americans' favorite Italian foods, like cheese-laden pepperoni pizza and fettuccini Alfredo, are anything but healthy.”

The answer she says is that first of all the Italians dine leisurely.  “...like other Mediterranean cultures, [Italians] know how to really enjoy the experience of eating. They relax and socialize while dining for hours...”  The Italians also enjoy an active lifestyle, as well as a diet, with simple, fresh foods and of course red wine. All of this helps Italians enjoy long lives.  So the Italians don't just eat to satiate themselves; they eat for pleasure, as a form of recreation, and as a way to bond with others.  Now this is the kind of gluttony I can get into.

The contrast is clear.  Too many Americans eat in front of a television or while  driving or at a desk.  We don't usually savor our food; we devour it, and it's often poison to our bodies.  And we have little sense of gratitude for the miracle of growing, preparing, and eating food.

Perhaps the real secret to ceasing to be over consuming gluttons is to become what Sam Keen calls “connoisseurs of gratitude.”  “The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude,” he writes, “the less you are a victim of resentment and despair.  Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve your need to possess.  It will transform you into a generous being.  The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous and large souled.”

I love that: magnanimous and large souled.  When we feel a genuine, deep down sense of thankfulness, when we are connoisseurs of gratitude, we develop an appreciation for what we have and an ability to let go of what we don't need. We simplify our lives not out of guilt but from an awareness of being constantly blessed.  

As Sam Keen writes, we need to “Make a ritual of pausing frequently to appreciate and be thankful.  Bless the food that nourishes you.  Bless whoever loves you in any way.  Bless your gifts and talents.  Bless old friends, little children, ancient parents...”

As we near Thanksgiving and Christmas, I invite you to consume less and to savor more, to be a true connoisseur of gratitude, a person who fills life not with stuff but with sensuality, who seeks happiness in giving instead of getting, who is overcome daily by the joy of living and loving.  What greater blessing could there be!

So may it be.

Resources:

“To A Dancing God” by Sam Keen.

“The French Guy,” by David James Duncan, “The Best American Spiritual Writing,” by Philip Zaleski

Questions for Covenant Groups:

1. Take the glutton quiz at www.beliefnet.com (search “gluttony”) and report your results (while you're at it, take the Belief-O-Matic quiz to see what religion you should be).

2. What are you a glutton about?

3. What are your eating habits?

4. Do you have too much stuff?  What have you done about it?

5. How happy are you?

6. What are 3 things you are thankful for?

7. Would you – or your group – be willing to take the money you would normally spend on food that is unhealthy for you during the holidays and donate it to the Holdeen India Project for their work in organizing the poorest of the poor?