On Appetites.

My father always spoke to me of appetites. He used short words and earnest eyes and told me that experiments turn into habits. “You are what you eat” was a casual idiom he would usually twist into his grave ultimatum that “You are what you tend to do.” The man was fixiated, and I took it in stride all of my teenage years as a fatherly obsession that didn't demand much thought.

But the image was recently pressed into my heart from an outside source.

This truth, this soapbox belonging to my father, became real.

There is a hose in my backyard which eliminates the need to return to the kitchen for a drink. The water is an uncomfortable temperature, the kind that makes you sleepy and leaves your tongue feeling thick and your teeth sticky. When I dangle the nozzle over my upturned face I sometimes permit the dirt- a memento of the hose's resting place- to fling itself headlong into the stream as it sloshes over my lips and onto my shirt. It is chalky; it probably glows in the dark. But it is available, and it is the way of children. I drink.

There is a brook running from a mysterious cranny high in the mountains which eliminates the need to use a purifier. The water is chilling, the kind that makes your eyelids shake and leaves your chest aching and your fingers jumping. When I submerge my hands and draw from the fount I sometimes permit the banks- rocky and dark - to draw my toes to the water as the draught travels to my mouth. It is wild; it probably houses 50 species of strange weeds and fish. But it is deep, and it is the way of ancient wanderers. I drink.

If the sustenance of the hose had been bad before-- oh, how the problem has been compounded. Out of a good experience, a standard is born. That which I have always known has been surpassed by that which I now know. And how do I react? How do I alter my previous patterns?

After drinking from the lofty shores of a mountain spring, I take a swig from the coiled hose. Where I should have cultivated a newfound appetite I instead quelled it to maintain a poor habit, a ritual not worth preserving. I trade the purity of a wellspring for the mud-caked pipe growing behind the home of my parents- trying to forget I have known better.

Interterm is sprawled out before us- a vast expanse of blank canvas, with little scheduling compared to the rigors of the semester. Do not, do not, settle. O Christian, remember the times of fruitfulness and joy in the Spirit! Cultivate an appetite so strong for Christ-centered living that there is no other choice but for it to become an unbreakable habit, a dependency. Let us ignore the wrong habits of stasis and appetites for stagnancy, and instead use our past experiences in God's presence as incentive to spur us toward virtue.

These are the habits that form us- and what a blesssing it would be, to habitually become more and more like Christ! How much more fruitful our sessions will be if the following weeks shaped us more and more into the people God has always wanted us to be! How well we will be able to pray for each other!

This is my encouragement. And like my father, I find myself thrilled to the core by this possibility, this opportunity to become what I tend to do. May we each chase righteous habits this interterm- may we all return next semester with a shared appetite for godliness.