Crack the craving

For those who asked, yes, I did resist the temptation to eat ice cream or cake. And it wasn't that hard. Boud commented that a holiday was the time to not stick to things but I'm still in my 30 Day Crack the Craving period. And I'm not convinced I have it beat yet!

I'm still thinking, in X days I'll be able to eat chocolate and cake and ice cream again, rather than, in X days my desire for sweet things will have decreased. If you see what I mean. 

And our scales is in kgs - there must be a way to change it but don't know how - so I've been able to tell myself that I'm not really that heavy. Yesterday I worked out what my weight is in stones and pounds and didn't like it. So another good reason to persevere.

Anyway in Zac's last night we read a magnificent passage from Isaiah. The chapter (58) begins with the Jews complaining that they worship and study God devotedly, and yet when they fast God still doesn't listen to them or answer their prayers. 

God responds by saying, well, you make a big show of all you do, you put on sackcloth and lie in ashes but then you get up and fight with each other. You work your employees too hard and all you care about is profits. Then he says this:

Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
    and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
    a fast day that I, God, would like?
This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.

Brilliant! And pretty revolutionary for 3,000 years ago.

For some inexplicable reason another verse was also quoted, to much raucous laughter. Probably one of the lesser-known verses of the bible, though Stu probably knows it.

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

(Ezekiel 23:20)

Could this be the basis for my next magazine article, as Sean suggested?!