Gluttony

We need to consider gluttony in the context of the prosperity that a privileged few enjoy.

Gluttony is the overindulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste. The word derives from the Latin gluttire, to gulp down or swallow. One reason for its condemnation is that gorging by the prosperous could contribute to leaving the needy hungry. When it comes to prosperity, however much one may have, the human being becomes a cracked vase that ironically, despite having no scope for retaining any fill, still has the ability to give more than it could have otherwise retained! We need to consider gluttony in the context of the prosperity that a privileged few enjoy. Abbot Christopher Jamison says, “Never has so much food been as easily and quickly available as it is today, and yet Western culture suffers from both too much eating and too little, from obesity and anorexia, or other eating disorders” (Finding Happiness). Today, in the area of food, there is no difference between the East and the West. Food has become the main preoccupation, given the difficult time we are going through on the ubiquitous pandemic. In times preceding the pandemic, we used to notice the mushrooming of eateries and restaurants in our cities and towns. During the pandemic, the home-delivery of food gave the young more liberty with food whereby, in the privacy of their work-space, they could gulp down anything to satiate their hunger.

Family meals thus became a rarity, each individual getting used to satisfying their own taste buds due to the easy availability of food supplies! One of the pitfalls of prosperity is that the more we have and the more we possess, the less we seek to possess God, and the more our spirits become distracted. Thomas Merton says, “The fact that men who refuse to believe in God, because they think that belief is “unreasonable” do in fact surrender without reason to baser forms of faith: they believe blindly in every secular myth, whether it be racism, communism, nationalism, or one of a thousand others which men accept today without question” (Thomas Merton: In my own words p. 86). Saint Paul exhorts the Philippians (3:19) in this manner, “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ: I have often told you and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” And the Book of Proverbs (23:1) says, “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite.

Do not desire the ruler’s delicacies, for they are deceptive food.” When there is material and economic prosperity, we permit ourselves indulgences galore. We rationalize and adopt a Hobbesian spin as we say: “Life is nasty, brutish, and short, and so we deserve the splurge.” We justify ourselves and try to admonish others with saying: “Life is short! So, go ahead and give yourself a huge treat like there’s no tomorrow!” Saint Bernard of Clairvaux of the 12th century has well warned us thus: “The deceitful charms of prosperity destroy more souls than all the scourges of adversity.” Carnal & Spiritual Pleasure Permissiveness in parenting raises untrained, ill-mannered children who are constantly trying to push boundary lines, failing as they do to understand the very idea of a boundary. Any wonder then that the monastics of old used to say, “Allow one fault and you will another”! Oughtn’t we then to guard against becoming complacent to the point of permitting ourselves the impermissible? As a matter of fact, diminished perspectives broaden self-permissiveness, excuses and rationalization becoming easier, within no time our spiritual life getting sabotaged through the comfort of our excuses and rationalizations. Before we know it, we have allowed ourselves into permissiveness, and the line has already been crossed.

There is a great difference between the pleasures of the body and those of the heart… In carnal pleasures the appetite causes satiety and satiety generates dissatisfaction. In spiritual pleasures, on the other hand, when the appetite gives birth to satiety, satiety in turn gives birth to greater appetite for them. Spiritual delights increase the extent of desire in the mind even while they satisfy the appetite for them. The more one recognizes the taste of such things, the more one recognizes what it is that one loves so strongly (From a Homily by Leo the Great). How to break away from gluttony Analytically, maintaining vigilance in honestly assessing our indulgence before it becomes a bad habit is of paramount importance; otherwise the boundaries become blurred and hard to discern. The problem with too much self-treating, with the over-assuaging of our appetites, is that after a while we don’t taste the chocolate; we just want more. Just like indulging in anger makes us want to destroy the person we are angry with. Gluttony will take hold of our hearts and begin to own us, unduly colouring our perspectives. What began with a small “treat” permitted without examination, leads to gourmandizing devoid of social consciousness.

Personally I have found the dictum “a few seconds in the mouth, and a life-time on the hips” effective in controlling my food urges. I give a deaf ear to utterances like, “You only live once! So why not indulge a bit!” Not for the likes of me allowing our health concerns to work overtime at dousing the flames of our appetite! I cannot help but maintain strict vigilance. After all, one’s health condition can be driven by emotional deprivation disorder. Psychiatrists tell us that there are patients who develop intense urges to gorge on sweets. They attribute it to a frustrated sexual drive or lack of intimacy. Psychiatric patients are known to tell their doctors, “When I am lonesome, when I feel the need to be with someone, I crave for sweets that children go for: licorice, caramels, jujubes, sugar cookies, cotton candy and suchlike, which prolong the pleasant sensation in the mouth. The more you have in your mouth the more intense the sensation.” Hence I need to frequently introspect whether my eating is a compensation for something that I am deprived of. Finally, all those graphic images of starving children in Biafra, and the present day children of Haiti who eat “mud cakes” and the numerous children and adults who scavenge through garbage heaps in our cities for grains of leftovers, do help me reign in my overindulgence not merely during Lent, but at all times ∎

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