Befriended Stranger

1. Find a map.
2. Pick a path.
3. Stay on the path.

A brief but very clever article on the U.S. Baha’i website challenges us to approach our spiritual search just the way any other journey. My experience is exactly the same: you need a map (a detached and openminded reading of any of the world religions would do it but the newest of God’s revelations would perhaps ring truer to a contemporary man’s ears), and you need to know the goal (for me that is getting closer to the Creator, God). Once you select the goal and have the map, you need to stick to the path — even if the road is sometimes narrow and rocky and challenging, the reward of overcoming difficulties and the conviction that what awaits us is better than anything we can imagine in this material world, should encourage us and sustain us on a daily basis.

When I came to the U.S. almost 12 years ago I was impressed by the emphasis on healthy eating but perplexed by observing that too often the idea of healthy eating was overshadowed by the focus to avoid this or that ingredient of the meals. It seems that the idea of a healthy meal as a whole, integral combination of delicious food was not there — what most people were counting were calories, nutrients, antioxidants, etc. Where was the food in all this meal chemistry analysis? I could never put my pulse on what seemed wrong, and now a fascinating article published by the New York Times helps me understand this by shedding light on the shift from nutritious meals to nutritionism that has shaped America’s grocery store shelves over the past 30 years.

The following illustration is a very clever summary of the premise of the article:

A banana is more than its ingredients. Knowing the vitamins are an essential part of a healthy diet does not mean that you should eat only vitamins. There is as much value in the interaction of the ingredients as in the ingredients themselves.

The article tells also a lot about the scientific methods used by research studies and the the shaky grounds on which our trust in science is built. This very fascinating and thought-proviking, and highly recommended article, offers a simple advise for those in search for healthy food guidance:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

This blog will track my spiritual search. As I grow through tests and difficulties, through reading and listening, I want to share my thoughts with the hope they might be of services to others. Thanks for visiting!

Mitko