Learn To Splurge … Occasionally
Fresh Start , Issue 14

Everything in moderation, especially "naughtiness."

The question becomes how to be "naughty" without endangering our soul or society or the planet. I haven't got it all figured out yet, but that doesn't stop me from every now and then infusing my soul with a "naughty night." I go out with friends or with my wife and we're ostensibly, avowedly naughty. We pig out on barbecue or prime rib. We buy a bottle of wine. We spend too much money on a meal. We talk too much. We laugh too loud. We eat the dessert with the "devil" name prefixed to it.

When the "naughty night" is over, it's back on the wagon.

I have an annual ritual of my one ice cream cone. It's always the same flavor-the very worst-for-you flavor there is: coconut. But I get the biggest cone of coconut ice cream anyone will sell me and make myself sick on it. Once a year I have the biggest prime rib money can buy. I periodically overdose on fats and sugars. Then it's back on the wagon.

Everything in moderation, especially "naughtiness." Too many of us are too fat. It's not just Willard Scott who worships in "the church of Krispy Kreme." All those luncheon rendezvous at the "roach coach" and "yuck truck" food vehicles are taking their toll. For the first time in history, the numbers who are clinically overweight exceeds the number at or below normal weight.

What is more, the more religious the person, the more rotund the bodyscape. The most secular places in America are also the skinniest. Fitness physician Kenneth Cooper did a study of seventy-five different professionals-doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. Guess which professionals were at the bottom of the list when it came to physical conditioning? Pastors. When a reported asked Jerry Falwell about these findings, he replied, "I fit the mold. I don't think God gives a flip either way."

from "Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa" by Leonard Sweet, PhD

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