food truck smells

    Ok everyone, I have one more blog post for the theology blog, and this blog is about religious scrupulosity, which can be in the form of OCD or not a matter of mental illness at all.  It has to do with doing what you are supposed to in super specific detailed situations where it could be questionable to spend a disproportionate amount of religious strength to keep a certain standard.  I go ahead and use the word questionable in order to put the scrupulosity on the defense, instead of the people trying to do what they are supposed to.

     The example I want to mention is something I think about very frequently, but know that it is just not a big deal.  It has to do with Halal trucks, which have a certain kind of food that has some kind of religious approval that some people (Muslims, I think) are supposed to have in order to eat almost anything.  I am thankful that many people are providing for each other and that there is food like that available.  I myself usually do not eat from those trucks at all, as a way of practicing my own religion. I think most people aren’t that scrupulous, though, and they would eat that food just as I sometimes eat food that is kosher and blessed by a rabbi even though I am a Christian and not Jewish.

   But that is still not the exact thing I want to say.  The thing I want to say has to do with how I really like good smells and sometimes feel like when I walk by those trucks and inhale the yummy food smell on purpose, then I actually am partaking in Halal food to some extent.  I have held my breath before, but I have mostly come to the conclusion that I should just relax and enjoy the smells as I walk by.  In fact, that seems pretty obvious to me, and I think that I have to take that information and apply it to my whole OCD problem, which is an all-pervasive condition that affects almost every moment of my life.

   I think the thing I have to learn from it is that all of us probably do not have to be perfect in the details, and that it might even be impossible.  What does this mean?  A lot of people might find that really obvious, but I actually know that there are probably people reading this who are more like me and actually have a hard time believing what I am saying and about to say, which is that a general righteousness and obedience from people might be mainly what God expects sometimes.  Of course, there are crucial moments and ethical dilemmas that do deserve everyone’s best efforts, but if we know that there are any examples at all of times where the compromise is okay, then it makes sense to apply that logic to the more important things, too.

   And as much as interesting ethical situations can seem defining or representative, if people took another view and thought about how society would be if everyone simply pretty much did what they were generally supposed to, the more extreme goodness might actually be more likely to take place than with rare strictness or even heroism that has often, and maybe too often, been celebrated.