Another beautiful morning in a string of them. I left the house in Shelter Bay before 6 AM and walked across the bridge to LaConner and along the boardwalk to the Marina’s North Basin and then circled back to Kim’s “Stompin’ Ground” Coffee Shop for a cup of black tea and a few minute’s rest, reading the Skagit Valley Herald and talking briefly with Kim, promising a dozen of my New Era Muffins for her to try, possibly Friday, if I meet there with my young friend, Jeff. With the needed break, I proceeded to wind my way back along the boardwalk only to run into my friend Allen E. Allen is one of the few people who continues to live in a small cabin along the Skagit River without electricity, heating and eating with only the help of a wood-fired stove. He uses a canoe and then a bicycle to get to town maybe once or twice a month. When he’s here in town, he eats at the Calico Cupboard because they fix his vegetable dishes to order. That was the occasion for our chance meeting this morning. He was waiting for the Calico Cupboard to open at 8 AM. We have a mutual friend in Marcella, the pastor of the Methodist Church. It was she to whom Allen turned after the death of his son two years ago now. We had an absorbing conversation around Richard Rohr’s concept of “Falling Upward”, the title of one of his many books.
We want to spend more time together at some point. I gave him one of my “Buns of Skeele” bakery cards which included my phone number and was again on my way. The brief talk with Allen had renewed my energy and led me to think again about the value of friendship, Are we, by nature, at our must fulfilled, in our relationship with others or is it solely a matter of finding the truth of who we are? Ultimately, to answer my own question, we must all love ourselves – its an essential first step – but it is only the first step in that love, the nature of which is to reach out and draw in all, to build community. The “Body of Christ” is just that although organized religion has had a poor way of showing it. I got home by 8:30 AM so it was a good jaunt, lots of exercise both physically and spiritually, a reviving experience as I settle in now, revisiting my Keto Diet, starting today with my intermittent fasting plan. The black tea, my second cup this time laced with cream and MCT oil, serves to reduce my hunger pangs until my body gets used to the change. I’ve just got to put an end to this tendency of mine to depend on sweet carbs – an addiction – and get at the urgent matter of reducing my belly fat permanently. In that connection I just ordered my first frozen low-carb pizzas from the KBosh Baking Co.one of many new, start-up businesses hopping on a low-sugar/low carb movement to combat the rise in diabetes and prediabetic disease in this country. It takes determination and a willingness to pull it off but this time around, I’m ready to be different, not to get sucked back into convention, into my lifetime of too many sweets. There really is no middle ground. There are days when I will intentionally break the sugarless cycle but they will be deliberate times and by definition, rare times. The thing is, with all the new low-carb recipes out there, with all the sugar substitutes, it’s all doable. About 11 AM or so, I’ll fix myself 3 strips of bacon, two eggs over easy, a half of an avocado and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese which will give me about 80% good fat, 15% protein and 5% carbs which is the ratio I want to achieve on an everyday basis as I get my body to burn good fat as fuel instead of sugar.
As you notice here, I’m paying close attention to my body which at this point in my life – at 91 years of age – is sending me clear signals that I have consciously to deal with if I want to continue to be useful. I’m of little use to myself or anyone else if I’m beset with physical issues that threaten my mobility or sanity. Seeing my older friends struggling to walk and move is itself motivation to do what I can identify to do in the way of prevention. What I take into my body is of major concern, every right thing I eat enjoying some correspondence to my level of health. I am in the process here of once again taking charge of my life, of what I put in my mouth, creating my own revival, right here, right now, pitching my own tent for an old-fashion revival, preaching a sacred message to myself about the sacredness of all life, and, as part of that, the sacredness of my body, God’s very temple – where love’s presence abides – as St. Paul reminds us.
