As a little boy, I so looked up to my Uncle Roy. Although the youngest of three siblings (my aunt, my father, and him), he wound up being a much bigger man physically than either my father or my grandfather. To this day, I can still recall the stories I marveled at when told of his upbringing.
Like the time I was told about when he was a teenager at home doing his homework, and two local bullies showed up out in the front yard to taunt him. He tolerated it for a little while before finally telling his mother (my grandmother) that she would just have to forgive him, as he got up from the table, stomped out the front door, and proceeded to whip the ever-loving tar out of the two of them!
And now you see why, to a boy of age seven as I was, his six foot, one inch height and two hundred pound chiseled frame was an impressive thing to behold. His massive arms appeared to me like oak trees attached to a mountain-sized torso. Oh, how I longed to grow up and be like him!
Well, the day eventually came when I did grow up, and even came within an inch of his height. But no worry, as I finally made up for it by far surpassing him in weight! (Laughing emoji here!)
Maybe all of this is why I have always been enamored by heavyweights. Whether they be “wrastlin’” (television wrestling) champs like “Dusty Rhodes”, or “boxin’” champs like Joe Frazier or George Foreman, or football champs like the Falcons’ “Tommy Nobis” or the Steelers’ “Mean Joe Green”, I always pulled for the heavyweight to be the ultimate champ!
And maybe this is why I have also become enamored these days with such recurring fall classics as the annual “World’s Heaviest Pumpkin Contest”, which was won this year by a entry weighing in at a whopping 2,471 pounds; as well as the annual “Fat Bear Contest” held up in Alaska, which was won this year by an enormous mama bear who actually beat out a male bear which had fatally attacked one of her cubs earlier this summer. She weighed in at an impressive weight of well over 1200 pounds!
As I have reflected on all of this, I have come to see that each of us, regardless of our respective physical traits, is in fact a heavyweight in one area or another. Think about it. They say that you become what you eat. In this sense, all of us are overloaded in one given area or another.
I have known people who were so obsessed with this, that, or the other pursuit that they ultimately became so full of whatever it was that they were consuming that they inevitably became little more than a general manifestation of what all it was that they had consumed.
And so, my friend, “In what way or ways are you a heavyweight?” Please note that I did not ask: “Are you a heavyweight?” As we are all a heavyweight in one way or another, I ask again, “In what way or ways are you a heavyweight?”
In other words, what have you so consumed (Or rather, what has so consumed you?) that you have become obsessed with it and by it? That is to say, what has become all-consuming and all-consumptive in your life? In other words… just what are you consuming, and has that just begun to consume you?!
These days, I have come to conclude that it might be best to beware the status of “heavyweight”. In some circumstances, by comparison, it might well be much better to be perceived as being a “lightweight”.
In the Old Testament Book of Proverbs (chapter 6, verse 27), we read: “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” The point here is that what goes into the body has consequences in what is the manifest in the outcome! The same can be aid for your mind, and also for your soul.
In light of this, my friend, beware of what all you take into your own bosom. It may well show up one day in your external persona. For after all, each one of us is little more than precisely what we eat!
SOURCES:
https://www.newser.com/story/357828/oh-my-gourd-this-pumpkin-weighs-in-at-nearly-25k-pounds.html;
https://www.newser.com/story/357534/shes-the-first-working-mom-to-win-fat-bear-week.html.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/proverbs/6-27.htm.
Like the time I was told about when he was a teenager at home doing his homework, and two local bullies showed up out in the front yard to taunt him. He tolerated it for a little while before finally telling his mother (my grandmother) that she would just have to forgive him, as he got up from the table, stomped out the front door, and proceeded to whip the ever-loving tar out of the two of them!
And now you see why, to a boy of age seven as I was, his six foot, one inch height and two hundred pound chiseled frame was an impressive thing to behold. His massive arms appeared to me like oak trees attached to a mountain-sized torso. Oh, how I longed to grow up and be like him!
Well, the day eventually came when I did grow up, and even came within an inch of his height. But no worry, as I finally made up for it by far surpassing him in weight! (Laughing emoji here!)
Maybe all of this is why I have always been enamored by heavyweights. Whether they be “wrastlin’” (television wrestling) champs like “Dusty Rhodes”, or “boxin’” champs like Joe Frazier or George Foreman, or football champs like the Falcons’ “Tommy Nobis” or the Steelers’ “Mean Joe Green”, I always pulled for the heavyweight to be the ultimate champ!
And maybe this is why I have also become enamored these days with such recurring fall classics as the annual “World’s Heaviest Pumpkin Contest”, which was won this year by a entry weighing in at a whopping 2,471 pounds; as well as the annual “Fat Bear Contest” held up in Alaska, which was won this year by an enormous mama bear who actually beat out a male bear which had fatally attacked one of her cubs earlier this summer. She weighed in at an impressive weight of well over 1200 pounds!
As I have reflected on all of this, I have come to see that each of us, regardless of our respective physical traits, is in fact a heavyweight in one area or another. Think about it. They say that you become what you eat. In this sense, all of us are overloaded in one given area or another.
I have known people who were so obsessed with this, that, or the other pursuit that they ultimately became so full of whatever it was that they were consuming that they inevitably became little more than a general manifestation of what all it was that they had consumed.
And so, my friend, “In what way or ways are you a heavyweight?” Please note that I did not ask: “Are you a heavyweight?” As we are all a heavyweight in one way or another, I ask again, “In what way or ways are you a heavyweight?”
In other words, what have you so consumed (Or rather, what has so consumed you?) that you have become obsessed with it and by it? That is to say, what has become all-consuming and all-consumptive in your life? In other words… just what are you consuming, and has that just begun to consume you?!
These days, I have come to conclude that it might be best to beware the status of “heavyweight”. In some circumstances, by comparison, it might well be much better to be perceived as being a “lightweight”.
In the Old Testament Book of Proverbs (chapter 6, verse 27), we read: “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” The point here is that what goes into the body has consequences in what is the manifest in the outcome! The same can be aid for your mind, and also for your soul.
In light of this, my friend, beware of what all you take into your own bosom. It may well show up one day in your external persona. For after all, each one of us is little more than precisely what we eat!
SOURCES:
https://www.newser.com/story/357828/oh-my-gourd-this-pumpkin-weighs-in-at-nearly-25k-pounds.html;
https://www.newser.com/story/357534/shes-the-first-working-mom-to-win-fat-bear-week.html.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/proverbs/6-27.htm.