12And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

13And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.

Isaiah 22:12–13 . A Call to Sorrow and Mourning
The descriptive terms used here by Isaiah are clearly signs of great sorrow and grief. Baldness (not natural baldness, but the shaving of the hair) was a great shame and signified great calamity (compare Isaiah 3:24 ). The Lord suggests that when Judah saw their impending doom they should have seen it as a call to deep repentance and clothed themselves with sackcloth and baldness. Instead, they acted as though they had been called to a joyous feast, and they were singing the refrain of the world: “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die” ( Isaiah 22:13 ). As is typical of the wicked in a time of crisis, they would prefer to indulge their passions than to repent (see vv. 17–19 ). LDS Old Testament Student Manual ch 14.

A month or two ago The Blaze.com had an article about strip clubs. The point of the article was that strip clubs are thriving despite the recession; in fact all "vices" thrive during recessions. Gambling, drinking, drugs, you name it. I had just read the above verses in Isaiah and couldn't help draw a major connection between the two. All over the world we are being called to repentance, are we listening?

I saw this video and LOVED it. Danny and I think it would be so cool to live in a small home hand-built by us with natural materials. I'm also infatuated with cob houses, straw bales, adobe, and living roofs.

Thoughts, Good and Bad and Scary

Recently my very good friend, JaNae, started a great blog dedicated to health in all its various forms and approaches. www.healthonamission.blogspot.com. She invited me give my two-cents occasionally, which was a huge compliment, and awesome because I've been thinking about health a lot lately. I decided my "column" so to speak will be titled, "Simple Observations That Make My Health Easier", and I'll post whenever I have an ah-ha moment or have adopted a new technique that I think makes it easier for Danny and me to be healthy. I don't claim to be an expert or even that I know what I'm talking about a lot of the time. But I will say that I take my responsibility to take care of my body and Danny's body and any other little bodies that might one day come under our care seriously. I am to be the nutritional guardian of my home. It is my responsibility to see that my family is healthy and educated about what to fuel their bodies with and what will poison them.

Did you know they give arsenic to people with leukemia?!!! Arsenic is a poison. A POISON. Pure and simple. It's been a poison of choice for assassins and back-stabbers and usurpers and angry wives for centuries. You administer it in small doses and your victim dies a slow, miserable death. What makes the doctors think that it won't do harm to their patients while still getting to the cancer?? "First, do no harm." Hippocrates taught that, he also taught that food should be your medicine and medicine should be your food. If our bodies make cancer, I believe they can heal cancer with the right nutrients. If anyone has anything to say about the benefits of arsenic, I'd like to hear them. I may sound like I won't believe you, and I may not, but I'm still ignorant about the justification for using arsenic, and I shouldn't be.

I hope all, well the handful of you who are reading this, are keeping up on what's happening in the middle-east and in our government and in Europe. If you're not, please start. If you are and it's not putting a fire under your butt, you aren't thinking about what it all means. There are some globally terrifying things happening, and we are not out of reach even though we may think we are. Please, please, because I love you. Please get prepared to have to FIGHT to keep what little may still be yours.

So this month has been all about health for Danny and me. Well, he's focusing on school and work too, so it's been all health for just me I guess. It started when we found ourselves watching food documentaries whenever we decided to watch a movie. Yeah, I know, we're nerds. But we got totally hooked on them, and have watched quite a few. We were turned on to eating lots of organic, raw fruits and vegetables-as many as I could shove in the refrigerator in fact. I started spending hours online searching for raw and vegetarian recipes. Reading all about the specific nutrient needs of vegetarians and trying to figure out how to make sure we were both getting optimal amounts of the things we each need. (We're not strictly vegetarian, but might head that way, or more likely we'll be ovolactopescatarian since we really like cheese and eggs and fish. Here's an article I liked a lot which reinforced some things we've been learning from the scriptures and the many food documentaries we've been loving: http://www.ldsveg.org/ChrisFosterPhd.htm.) I started experimenting with foods I've never eaten before, or have hated and so avoided, like radishes. I realized that there are so many more vegetables than I could name. I had never tried a fennel bulb, and now it's one of my favorites! I can munch on it like some people munch on cucumbers or celery. I love it. I have been making huge salads full of all sorts of vegetables. I chop everything really small including the lettuce or lettuces so that you could eat it with a spoon, and that is definitely the way to go. I hide radishes in it and can't even tell! We load pitas full of salad and some simple dressing and feel like we've eaten the best meal in the world. We feel fantastic and energetic and satisfied.
I have totally enjoyed this month and everything I've learned about food. I feel so proactive and hopeful about it. I feel like health is not so much cutting out bad things as it is shoving ourselves with good things; and the more good things you shove in you the fewer bad things fit. They do always say that that's the best way to break a bad habit-replace it with something better.
I ate a cupcake tonight that a friend brought over, and I felt super icky less than five minutes afterward. My shoulders even hurt. Not all desserts are bad, but lots of them are, and I am positive I hurt everywhere because my body no longer wants all that refined, empty stuff. Wouldn't that be awesome!? Never again to want what is bad for us? Isn't that like a gigantic part of God's plan for us? Aren't we supposed to figure out how to only want what is truly, eternally good for us? Isn't that the only way we'll be able to be with him again, the only way we'll be comfortable in his presence? When we no longer want what's bad for us or holding us back or dirtying our souls, then we'll be able to fill ourselves with his light, his love, his presence, and go HOME. It is ultimately our choice, because that's what agency is.