What is your Top Ten List?

Right now I am reading Jonny Bowden's The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. Throughout the book Jonny has asked some of the top experts in nutrition to give of list of what they consider their top ten foods. This doesn't mean what they RECOMMEND to their patients or clients but rather what THEY ACTUALLY EAT. I have always been curious about such a list or lists. Here is what I have found:

(12) blueberries and salmon
(7) spinach
(6) eggs, nuts, and broccoli
(5) strawberries, raspberries, beans / lentils, and sea vegetables
(4) grass-fed beef, kale / chard, blackberries, extra virgin olive oil, pomegranates and/or juice
(3) ground flaxseed, apples, almonds, steel-cut oats, avocado, green tea, onions, bean / seed sprouts, and yogurt
(2) whey, brown rice, chicken, peppers, tomatoes, coffee, garlic, sardines, coconut oil, vegetables (mix), and sweet potatoes
(1) cranberry juice, lemons, spaghetti squash, jjicama, peanut butter, organic cream, red lentil sprouts, mango, egg whites, turkey, walnuts, arugula, grapes, almond butter, buckwheat, black beans, kiwifruit, mung beans, pineapple, kimchi, baby greens, mushrooms, asparagus, brewer’s yeast, celery root, wild game, buffalo, alcohol, and water

Do you agree? Disagree?

I began to think about my top ten list. What would it look like? What would it include? Am I really eating as well as I had hoped? Well, here is what I have come up with:

Spinach

Wild Alaskan Salmon

Walnuts

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Berries (including blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries)

Ground Flaxseed Meal

Pure Water

Kale / Chard

Brown Rice

Beans (black, pinto, garbanzo, kidney, etc.) / Lentils

I based this list on not only what I believe to be important in my diet but also on what I actually eat on a regular basis.

Do you agree? Disagree?

Write your own list. What did you come up with?

Enchantment

I am listening to the MarsHill “Worship in Every Direction” CD this morning and the song “Enchanted” came on. Whenever I hear that song, over and over again, my eyes are opened to what the world has to hold – how we have been so blessed by the earth around us. Describing our world as enchanted makes it so mysterious and wonderful and good. I want to be out in that kind of world, I want to take care of that kind of world, I want to truly LIVE in that kind of world. I begin to wonder, what would our day look like if everything around us became “enchanted”? How would our actions and thoughts change? Would we complain less? Would we worry less? Would we be okay with status quo? OR, would we take on the world’s enchantment and become enchanted to those around us? Is our view of the earth directly tied with our view of God? With others view of us and, thru us, God? Are we leaning in closer to see it? Are we DARING to breathe it in?

“Much of nature seemed to be an excited repetition. Like that of an excited schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again. The grass seemed signaling to me with all its fingers at once. The crowded stars seemed bent upon being understood. The sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times. The recurrences of the universe rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation. And I began to see an idea. In short, I had always believed the world involved a magic. Now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound emotion present in the self-conscious. This world of ours has some purpose. And if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story. And if there is a story, there is a storyteller.”

This is the kind of world I want to live in…..that of a story filled with all of the magic we search for as a child, and long for as an adult. May we be awakened to this world. May we find the magic that lives in every blade of grass and watch the sun rise with new expectation. May we see the miracles of this world and be unable to stop ourselves from squealing in delight. May we catch our breaths each day at the beauty we find and may we never forget the storyteller behind it all.

God, give us new eyes to see…..may we be free.

Grace and Peace.