My son Lane made a bet with his friends at school in Philly. Four of them put up $500 a piece challenging each other to live off one single food for the month of October, ending on Halloween Day. Lane decided to eat kidney bean for the month.
When I heard about the bet, I was more than a little perturbed. This is a young man that calls me up in the middle of the day to add 10 dollars to his student account when he wants to buy a new paint brush for his art work. With his tight budget, $500 was an extravagant gamble. Lane assured me that since there were four of them in on the bet he was confident he could get $1500 from the wager.
Money wasn’t even my major wager problem. Beyond the money put at risk, Lane was risking his health. I talked to a couple health professionals about Lane’s situation and was assured that though it wasn’t the wisest thing, he’d probably be fine. Finally I reasoned to myself that Jesus fasted for 40 days, and 40 nights and Jesus didn’t have beans.
During Lane’s bean fast, Lane came home from school two times. We watched the political debates together. Do you know what a diet of beans does to a person’s digestive tract? When a guy is eating nothing but beans the old rhyme about beans the magical fruit is oh so true. I can tell you that those political debates we watched together really stunk. With Lane’s stinky body, I can’t imagine how he maintained to keep his girlfriend or any of his close relationships through the month of October.
Even more than his stinky-body, I was concerned about Lane’s boney-body and broader health. He went from a hearty one hundred and ninety-five pounds to a skinny one hundred and sixty-five pounds.
On one of his trips home I sat with him in his bedroom listening to many of the insights he was having as he fasted on beans. He told me of eating just once a day. He said that for a three day stretch, he had nothing but water and there were several other single days, here and there where he didn’t bother with the beans. As I listened I stayed calm, cool and collected but inside I was freaking out.
“Why don’t you eat more, son” I asked?
“Just to test myself,” he said“ It’s so cool to be able to have perfect control”
Lane has always been a person who pushes himself to perfection whether it in building some fancy contraption, playing water polo or football, painting a picture, or just being the best person he can be. He likes that feeling of being in control.
When I heard Lane talking about his perfect control I drew a picture in the air for him. I said “Let this LINE represent control of your life. On this one side is complete control. On this other side is total lack of control. Now just imagine bending this bar to make a circle where the two opposite ends connect. Sometimes being in complete control and being completely out of control are very close to one another.”
“I see what you are saying,” he said.
We went on to talk about several examples of perfect control:
--The person who perfectly controls his eating can develop a deadly eating disorder.
--A skilled athlete who works out constantly, and does nothing else, can run the risk of missing other important things in life.
--A person who perfectly controls his emotions can loose his ability to have genuine feelings.
--A person who tries to maintain absolute control over their money and never learns the joy of giving is in danger of becoming a greedy miser.
While I was talking with Lane about loosing control in the midst of grasping control I could feel within me a mounting desire to grab control of him and just make him eat a big bowl of chicken vegetable soup.
Lane succeeded in winning his bet. Unfortunately he had to split the pot with another winner who lived the month on buckwheat. While fasting, Lane lost weight, but gained many insights like the mystics who practice fasting as a spiritual exercise. The surprising thing was that I too gained spiritual insights from his fast. Lane’s test in control became a personal test in control for me.
Several times during October, I awoke in the mornings with nightmarish visions of my son as a skeleton. Each time I had to stop and breathe. Some people stop and breathe so they can regain control of a situation. I had to stop and breathe so I could give God control. I breathed out all my anxiety, frustration, anger, and need for control. I breathed in the filling of God’s Spirit with the Lord’s peace. Lane’s crazy bean fast taught me that as a father, I need to let God be in control. Only when the Lord has control, is there perfect control
My test in control continued the next month when Lane signed up to be a human guinea pig for a new drug test at Penn’s MedSchool. He explained, “Dad, I’m getting $1500 for doing nothing but taking a medication and having my body monitored. That’s three months I don’t have to work and I can concentrate on my studies.”
There has got to be a better way for a young man to make money in school . I’m still practicing my breathing.
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