Feed Your Head

There is a modern mania about purity in foods, an obsession with weight, cholesterol,sodium, vitamins, exercise – all of them legitimate issues, to be sure. But while there is high energy spent on what goes into our mouths, where is the concern for what goes into our eyes and ears, for what feeds the spirit? There is so much that is lovely to see, hear, read, behold: why are we so often indifferent to the violence and ugliness that assault and diminish us, often in the name of news or entertainment? In the name of freedom, perhaps something of our humanity is chipped away when we claim so proudly that nothing offends us. A very great deal ought to.

 

– Donald Spoto, from “The Hidden Jesus: A New Life” (St. Martin’s Press, 1998)