But, I like hotdogs! !

I have endured rolled eyes and glassy stares whenever I have given an explanation as to why I participate (endure?) in a body purification program maybe two to three times a year. The three week program basically gives your liver a rest from all of the detoxing it tries to do to combat the invasion of chemicals and preservatives that we daily consume. The Program encourages consumption of an abundance of normal food that our grandparents ate all the time and taking some herbs in capsule form. I do not make money off of selling the program to others. People only find out about 'my cleanse' when I try to politely decline a type of food that is offered to me during the three week period. "What's the matter? Are you a health nut?" "Do you think you are too heavy?" are just a few of the taunts hurled my way. No, I am not a health nut. No, I do not think that I am obese. I am only finally understanding how my body works and how I can optimize the way it functions. Eating ice cream, candy, and drinking coffee are still a few of my favorite things! I am simply not opposed to being open to the elimination of the negative and encouraging a few positives in my physical realm.

Hot dogs have been hailed as really bad things to ingest. Someone told me that if I had ever watched how hot dogs are made, I would never even think of having one. "Do you know what they put in those?!" Well, I have an idea what goes into hot dogs, and I definitely understand why they are not on the suggested meats for my post cleanse. But, you know, I like hot dogs! I can make them a little healthier by putting sauerkraut on them and drinking bottled water with them instead of a Mountain Dew. I have thousands of justifications for eating hot dogs. The best one is the total confidence that by adhering to other health habits, I enable my liver to spend extra time on ridding the nasties of the dogs from my body. How clever!

Now, from my physical realm to my spiritual realm. Over the past ten years I have participated in a type of purification program with the Church. Information about pedophiles, church closings, and various shady deals within the walls of the Catholic Church gave me a wake up call about what I had been unwittingly ingesting for years. Because of that influx of information, I guess I have been on a type of cleanse. I now try to be more aware of how I participate in the Church in an attempt to optimize my spiritual health. How am I doing? I pray, read, listen to music and still work hard on a Confirmation team to open students up to their spiritual destinies. Yet, I now make every attempt to stay aware of what the church is putting in the 'hot dogs' for their parishioners' consumption. Are there any ingredients in what I am fed spiritually that requires a spiritual cleanse?

I recently started to read "Render Unto Rome" 'The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church' by Jason Berry. A friend gave it to me to read and I swore I would diligently read it. That vow collapsed just into the third chapter when I read about Pope Pius IX and St. Peter's Pence. I have not picked up that book in three weeks because, darn it, I like hot dogs! I do not want to know anymore about how the church misuses funds. I want to believe that the church is perfect as much as I want to believe that eating hot dogs at every meal is great for my body! But, because I know that man is not perfect, I know that I have to pick up the book again and read on. Yes, I am hoping that the ending shows that the Spirit does as great a job cleansing the Church as my healthy liver does to all the nasties that find their way into my food!

So, page 51, how long will it take me to finish on page 360? I confess that I turned to the last page and found comfort and a little inspiration in the last line: "The miracle is that the Eucharist endures."