*Note: This is not clickbait and hopefully not scandalous to pious ears and eyes. Just something I've been thinking about. So read on in confidence; I'll get to the title point eventually!
One of the reasons I haven't posted in almost a month is I have been a little more preoccupied with my health and, more specifically, my diet (not that writing and such preoccupation have to be mutually exclusive like that, mind you). My blood pressure has been in the "pre-hypertension" range, and I am "overweight" according to my BMI by about 15-20 lbs. Glucose is normal, but I do tend to eat a lot of carbs and sweets.
In any case, I've been exploring ways to lose weight and improve my health and energy, as nothing I've been doing seems to be working effectively. Two friends of mine have been having great results on the carnivore diet. My one friend has been on it for three years, and reportedly healed her lifelong IBS, psoriasis, and a whole ranger of other physical and mental health issues. Her total cholesterol was high, but from what she told me, demonizing cholesterol as a cause of heart disease may be misleading (more on that later), and she went ahead and got an artery scan to make sure they weren't blocked or anything, and they were all clear. My other friend is not strict carnivore, but meat heavy and says his anxiety has gone way down. He got a 172-point blood test done and everything came back healthy. Both have lost weight on it as well, fasting becomes way more sustainable, and hunger cravings subside.
I am willing to give anything a try, but to be honest the thought of eating meat almost exclusively day in and day out makes me nauseous. I do really like meat, which is why I don't want to get tired of it by eating it all the time. But also, my inner skeptic was hard to quash, because it just sounds sooo unhealthy--fatty meats, heavy cream, butter, eggs, a little cheese, generous supplementation with salt, some fish like salmon. And that's pretty much it. No seed oils. No sugar or carbs. All of this food is high in saturated fat, which we have always been taught was dangerous to heart health, as well as sodium. I also was terrified of getting constipated, since there is virtually no fiber on such a diet. Everything about it just seems to go counter to mainstream nutrition and health science, as well as common sense.
I know as a Christian, though, that viewing the teachings of Jesus through "mainstream" religious eyes (ie, that of the Pharisees and observant Jews of his day) makes absolutely no sense. Everything becomes paradox, flipped on its head, in order to work in the new divine economy. So I have faith that sometimes, maybe, things are not always as they seem. And the new "Way" that Jesus Christ espouses hinges on a few essential things without which it does not work: an abandonment to grace (rather than the Law); faith taking precedence over works; the cornerstone virtue of humility which admits it is powerless without God; and a charity which hurts (forgiving enemies, giving the cloak off your back, etc). So, I'm ok with paradox, willing to trust it if I trust the person leading.
I wanted to give this modified carnivore diet a go (even though in the back of my mind everything about it screams FAD DIET), and my friend talked me through a lot of my concerns and fears. I have been on the diet for almost two weeks and have lost almost a pound a day since starting, my blood pressure is for once in the "normal" range (120/80 or lower), I seem to have more energy (I've been working in the yard and biking almost every day without the need to take naps anymore) and mentally feel better as well. I don't feel constipated, yet only have a bowel movement once every three days or so (I used to be every day). This is because, apparently, your body has become so efficient at using your food for fuel that there is little waste left over. The diet is 80% fat calories, 20% protein, and virtually no carbohydrates. I also started reading the book The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz which makes the well-researched case that fats have been demonized due to flawed science, and that primitive cultures (like the Inuit, and other African tribes) have thrived on a high fat, animal based diet with almost no tooth decay or heart disease and cancer.
I think part of the lynchpin for the way this diet works is analogous to the way Christianity is rooted in paradox. The Holy Spirit will not rest on the proud, but only on the humble. You must die to live, be born again in order to see. The last will be first. God will not tolerate anything before him--you must leave mother and father to follow Christ exclusively, for no one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is worthy to be a disciple. Likewise, this kind of fat-for-fuel incinerator works only when carbohydrates are strictly eliminated, because otherwise the system kind of breaks down and your body is not in a state of ketosis and so all that fat will then "stick" to you. In the same way a proud man or a man of two minds will not see the face of God, you have to play by these "new rules" somewhat strictly and consciously for the system to work.
This was all a very roundabout and extended introduction to the fact that every day, I pretty much just eat meat (beef, lamb, chicken thighs, pork shoulder, bacon, etc), some eggs and cream and a bit of cheese, a little fish on Fridays, and electrolytes. Against all my thoughts to the contrary, this elimination diet has not burned me out yet--though there's no guarantee it won't in a few months time, provided I stay with it. 75% of the stuff in our pantry now I could probably throw out (beans, lentils, pasta, pastries, cereals, oils, flour, etc) though we keep it for the kids. It's just what I eat now. My wife is on board with me (though she is very low carb, she is not as strict on the carnivore piece).
+ + +
Speaking of my wife, we just celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary this summer. It's crazy when you think about that long-term commitment to one person (and we're just getting started!). Even monogamy in general seems like a novel concept to some of these B.C. male figures like King David and other biblical figures with their concubines and multiple wives. I do think there is something innate in men that, at a base level, craves sexual variety. But monogamy goes counter to that. It demands a strictness, an exclusivity, the elimination of all others. And that's not a bad thing, has its advantages, but only to say that man left to his own impulses would probably naturally choose to engage in relations with multiple women rather than just one if one is talking about strictly sexual gratification. Man wants salt and meat but also puff pastries and other sweets to gratify his palate.
On a back-of-napkin calculation, assuming one has relations with their spouse twice a week, that's 8 times a month x 12 months a year x 16 years = 1,536 times you have engaged in the marital act with the same person over the course of one's marriage. The nature of the act changes over time, of course, and hopefully deepens as well. What becomes moments of unrestrained passion that can't be held back in the early years becomes scheduled "I'm not necessarily hungry but I'll eat" sessions. What they may sometimes lack in spontaneity they often make up for in intuitive self-giving; over many years, one learns how to please their spouse, the little touches and subtle caresses that gives them pleasure that may be lost on the same younger couple satiating their animalistic urges with each other's bodies. It is natural that sex, like eating, is an appetite. For some (like those who are single, priests and religious, consecrated virgins, etc) it is a perpetual fast that sublimates and draws its life-energy from other sources. One does not need sex to live, and these witnesses to celibacy prove that point.
However, for married couples, St. Paul gives advice that one should be reticent to discount: one wife for one man (and vice versa) to prevent fornication (1 Cor 7:2); do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time (1 Cor 7:5), and this for each other's benefit so that you are not tempted to infidelity. When you've been engaging in the marital act with the same person for decades, it seems natural that things might be a little...routine. Some couples may panic at this and as a result go to extremes to introduce some "spice" into their love lives by, perhaps, visiting a "Birds and Bees" type-boutique for some sex toys or role-playing outfits, or in more extreme cases, open up their relationship to others (swingers, threesomes, etc) or through mutual viewing of pornography.
For the Christian, however, sex is more than just mutual gratification of the senses or the mechanics of manufacturing orgasms. It is a deep, abiding communion with another, a union of not only bodies, but souls. Just as God cannot get any closer to a human being's innermost self than He does in the reception of Holy Communion, man cannot get any closer to his wife when their marriage is consummated and they become not two but one flesh--not just figuratively, but spiritually.
Does this mean that every act of intercourse between spouses is a divine encounter of spiritual ecstasy that breaks open the seventh mansion of consummation in an earth-shattering rupture of heaven and earth? Of course it holds the potential for such experiences, but for those who have been married for any length of time, the mean is in the ordinary rather than the extra-ordinary. The spontaneous quickie before work has its place in a marriage as much as the dutiful living out of mutual submission through regularly scheduled intercourse after the kids go to bed. Both have the potential to be sinful, and both have the potential to be holy. But more often than not, routine sex in a marriage is the ordinary means of sanctification.
And 'routine' is not a pejorative in this sense. Anyone knows that couples who go for months or even years without sex are starving each other--sometimes intentionally and vindictively, sometimes through neglect or prioritizing other things. Sex is a marital barometer. When one reaches old age, it is natural for things to cool and taper off as non-genital intimacy keeps the hearth of a marriage kindled. People who are married have more sex, more often, than those who are not married. And that's a good thing, because sex is a good thing! God made it "very good!" Regular sex in a marriage, even when it's not sublime or earth-shattering or uber-spiritual, is still a good even when it is the satisfying of an appetite.
+ + +
Just as it's a little nauseating to think of how many pounds of meat I will be eating (provided I stay with this diet) over the next few months and, potentially, years, and just as (exhausting?) as the thought of having sex almost two thousand times over the course of our sixteen years of marriage is, the idea of praying the rosary every day (as Our Lady of Fatima exhorts us to do) has some parallels. The rosary is one of the most powerful meditative prayers in the arsenal of spiritual weapons we have as Catholics. As Fr. Amorth said, "Every Hail Mary is a blow to the Devil's head." It has the potential for deep insights into the life of our Lord and Our Lady that unfolds in scripture. It can bring healing of mind, body, and spirit. It can be meritorious for the souls in purgatory. Just as bringing a child (who may become a prophet, a scientist, a saint) into the world through the marital act can change the course of history, one rosary prayed with full devotion and unwavering belief can work miracles.
But let's be honest, here. When many of us who pray the rosary regularly do so, it's hard for it not to become rote. "Got my rosary in," or other type-A box checking can be akin to the joke my wife reminds me of ("err three days") when it comes to having relations. Sometimes you're just doing it because it's good to do, even if it is routine. I think Protestants especially see this "vain repetition" of the rosary and how many Catholics seem almost disconnected from it and think to themselves, "WORKS!" I think, like when it comes to a healthy, attentive, and unselfish sex life for married couples, there are things we can do to cultivate a more fruitful prayer life when it comes to the rosary. There are no shortage of spiritual books on the rosary that may give us new ways of looking at it, or entering more deeply into the Mysteries. We can slow down and, the way a cow chews it's cud, let each Hail Mary penetrate our senses and bring us right there into scripture, the way Lectio Divina bears its fruit. Of course, we might bang out a 15 minute rosary in the car on the way to work, or we might "go all night" in a marathon session where we pray the entire Psalter and find our flow.
But if you are praying the rosary every day, seven days a week for, say, fifty years, that's 18,250 rosaries, and close to one million Hail Marys during that span. Will they always be deeply meditative, deeply spiritual experiences? Is that even possible? Or is there a place for the benefit of "simply praying," "simply doing it," or "simply eating" your meat for its own sake? Perhaps we are transformed, slowly and infinitesimally, in virtue by the act of the regular work of prayer, the consistency of marital intimacy, the sticking to particular diets that keep us healthy (the jury is out on this one though) when our base urge is to hold up a Krispy Kreme at gunpoint. Sustainability and consistency, then, become the earmarks of a seasoned prayer and sex life, and a healthy diet that doesn't binge and purge.
I'll admit although I aspire to pray the rosary every day, it's more usually the same frequency as my sex life. There's nothing keeping me from being daily about it other than laziness aversion. Same with daily Mass. Still, I'm a work in progress. Two to three days a week is better than once a month, or even once a year, and I'll take the win, though it's no merit or accomplishment of my own. Life is difficult; God gives us sex in marriage as a natural good, a respite, perk and boon that not only brings mutual physical gratification, but a cementing of the bond between husband and wife so that they can tackle, together, whatever life throws at them. Likewise, prayer should not be a chore, even when it becomes rote and routine, but is a solace where we can commune, for 15-20 minutes, with the Lord whose yoke is easy and burden light. We can rest, lay down our anxious and worried minds, and enter into the mysteries both mentally and physically through the tactile repetition of the prayers as our fingers knead over the beads. God is so good that He even gives His ungrateful and complaining children fowl, meat from the air when they grumble that they are tired of bread.
So eat the meat, enjoy the sex, don't fret about your rosary being rote. Take solace in the hidden graces of routine, especially during those times when life can get upended and chaotic. Our Lady would not have given us the gift of the rosary if it weren't for our benefit. Our Lord would not have given Adam his help mate if he was supposed to be self-sufficient. And even though God grew all them herbs on the earth, he preferred Abel's offering and also gave us to eat the creeping things, the fish and fowl, the hoofed animals, the clean and unclean and commanded us, like Peter, to "kill and eat!"
