St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

As I write this at 11:40 am, my attention is being hijacked by hunger. The discomfort and distraction in my tummy shouting: “you cannot ignore me.” I don’t even have a plan for lunch right now, but I know I’m craving hot wings again, and I won’t be sitting here for much longer. Like all other pains, hunger is designed to move living things to action. When a human senses any kind of pain, he or she has a few choices. We can anesthetize – pop a pill and move on with our day. The problem with this approach is that pain doesn’t exist for itself, but points to a need that must be addressed. So, the gift of anesthetics can often become the equivalent of unplugging a fire alarm and expecting the smoke to clear.  Another approach is to acclimate to the pain. This tactic sees pain as an unavoidable thing that must be adopted into our normal experience until we develop a tolerance for it. The problem here is the same: merely another way of ignoring reality. Imagine convincing yourself that the fire alarm is just the ca