Eating is one of the great bodily pleasures of life. It involves four of the five senses (all five if you’re eating fajitas) in a highly intense orchestra of sensuality…at least when it’s done right. And yet, as someone who loves to eat, I learned a vital food lesson when I was a waiter.
No matter how good a food is, when you see it, serve it, and eat it every single day over and over again, the desire vanishes. One of the most regular gripes by people in the food service industry is that working for a restaurant you love ruins it for you because of semi-forced overexposure. There’s just something about turning a luxury into work that ruins it, even despite the fact that our bodies continuously renew our desire to eat in the strongest possible terms. How much worse, then, is this effect when no such bodily appetite exists?
You see, I have always loved books as much as food, but even my great passion was challenged by being compelled to consume so many of them in high school and college. A book should be savored, not force-fed. But when toil is all some people have known of reading, is it any wonder they never discover its joys at all? Moreover, how does such laborization of reading stunt those who later discover Christ and find themselves facing the Text of God?
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