The belly

John Climacus writes about the belly more personally than about anything else in the book. He says that in speaking of it he speaks against himself, and that he would be amazed if anyone were freed from this passion before the grave. The belly, in his view, is a cunning master: it is full, yet cries that it has too little. Cut one of its veins, and it opens another.

That is why he considers it the gate of many other passions. From it are born bodily passion, hardness of heart, excessive sleep, laziness and much talk. Whoever has followed the earlier rungs has seen the belly appear already among the mothers of anger and the causes of talkativeness. Here it gets its own turn.

John does not call for contempt of food. Food is a gift, and the table a place of communion. He asks that you master the belly before it masters you. Signs that it rules: you eat when you are not hungry, from tiredness, nerves or boredom. You cannot unwind without a drink. You treat holidays and guests as an excuse. After a heavy dinner your thoughts are heavy and your sleep is poor.

His advice is surprisingly moderate. Do not start abruptly: whoever goes straight to bread and water is like a child told to reach the top of the ladder in one jump. Go in order. First give up the food that fattens, then the food that inflames the body, and last of all the sweets. Eat filling and light food, sit down for a meal, and stop before you overload yourself. Keep your mealtimes, and laugh at the thought that suggests after dinner that you eat later tomorrow. If drink has become a need, cut it out completely for a set time, say forty days. If even that does not work, it is a sign that help is needed, not just willpower.

Master the belly before it masters you.

The traps are as old as the passion. Hospitality as an excuse: John describes a monk for whom a guest’s arrival becomes a reason to eat and drink himself, thinking he is hiding his virtue. Today it is the business lunch and the celebration. The belly also wrestles with vanity: the first pushes you to break the fast, the second to show it off. So fast quietly. And whoever has diabetes, high blood pressure or another illness should agree any fast or change of diet with a doctor.

John calls fasting the lamp of the soul and the sentinel of the mind. The sign that you have climbed: you eat when it is time to eat, not when nerves take hold. You can celebrate without excess. You do not need a drink to unwind. And one shared family meal a week, without phones, gives food back what it exists for: to bring people together.

The question remains: if the belly opens the gate to bodily passion, how is purity kept?

N. Ž.