One of the reminders mothers sometimes dish out at dinner is to chew your food. Some kids try to swallow the French toast in two bites and if mom is not confident at the Heimlich she wants them to slow down. Once my teenager decided to see how many peaches he could eat and for the sake of speed he barely chewed.

23.

I was aghast both at the size of his stomach and the lack of peaches for anyone else. 

I find it interesting that as soon as food slides down your throat, your responsibility for digesting it ends. No one I know has the capability nor interest in micromanaging the process that follows. I think it involves acids, twenty feet of intestines, and little hair like villi. I'm not sure. But that ignorance does not seem to impede the process one iota.

Other bodily functions also seem to operate without my knowledge. Blood circulates without my help, oxygen is exchanged without any encouragement from me, hormones show up at the right time whether I remember or not. It is almost as if things as personal as lunch are none of my business. I do have a shelf or two of books I have read about being vegetarian, and cooking, and the food industry. When I was pregnant I paid attention to folic acid and protein. But even the five hundred hours I spent educating myself about nutrition is less than a pile of crumbs compared to the time my body has spent turning bread into energy. It makes sense to choose spinach over Velveeta but once these lips are shut my contribution stops. 

There are days I have an inkling that my marriage is none of my business either. It is not as if I don't go out of my way to learn about it. There is an entire bookcase of resources by the front door. Yet at the same time it seems that something happens without my help. John has a few habits that used to make my stomach growl. But without much assistance from me, the annoyance seems to have broken down. I toss out the indigestible parts of my reaction and feel fed by the nourishing ones. Choosing forgiveness instead of criticism falls under my watch, but at some point things digest in a way I cannot even see much less understand. 

Maybe the One who designed my esophagus has a hand in my spiritual evolution too.