The Bathroom Scales

We had to buy a new pair of bathroom scales this week because we outlived the lifetime lithium battery in our old set. I guess that should be good news for us, but it didn’t really feel that great.

Armed with a screwdriver, my husband removed the back of the scales and made his best effort to replace the battery. Unfortunately, you also need to know how to calibrate scales once you’ve torn them apart. Wisely, he decided not to spend anymore of his lifetime battery on this problem, and we ended up buying a new set online.

Now, normally, I would have just run up to the store and bought a new set, but our daughter had purchased hers online and really liked them. They didn’t cost as much as those in the store—and with her two-day free shipping (an entitlement through her college—worth every penny of her college tuition for sure)—it seemed like the thing to do.

The big box arrived and I opened it with delight, trying to ignore the true cost to the environment that surely accompanied the personalized delivery, packaging and so forth. I rationalized that if I didn’t order it, I still would have had to drive to the store, and it still would have been packaged for its delivery there. But, that’s another column . . .

Anyway, I held my breath as I stepped on my new scales, expecting shock and horror, because over this two-day, scale-less period, I embraced a new mentality in regards to calories. With wild abandon, I entertained a few extra calories, and the following mantra:

If it can’t be seen, then it must not exist.

Those extra calories were not visible because they could not be measured, so I knew--I just knew--that they didn’t exist. What freedom! What joy!

But then the day of reckoning arrived with the big brown delivery truck . . .I saw it as my chance to prove my mantra---if it can’t been seen, it must not exist. Surely, extra calories that cannot be measured simply do not count.

As I had secretly hoped, everything went well. There was no major shock. In fact, I was delighted to discover I had actually lost weight! (I chose to totally ignore the fact that the calibration may have been off a little.)

So, in my mind, I proved my thesis.

But then, I started to wonder, was this only true for calorie intake?

Coming back down to earth, I quickly realized that people who believe that mantra are also those who do not believe in God and miss the proof of his existence all around them. If you can look at the beauty of this world and think it accidentally fell together without a Divine Creator, then you could easily believe that extra calories don’t really count just because they are not being measured.

But, the truth is, I personally chose to live with the illusion that I would be fine without a standard. To believe that I could act without self-discipline, without consequence. To dismiss my purpose and to undermine my goal; to forget my motivation. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that living within such a fantasy is usually very harmful.

The reality is, sometimes we need to be re-calibrated and the only measure that will accurately reflect where we are, and where we are going, is Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is not an illusion and those who believe in Him are not living in a fantasy, pretending He is real. Our believing doesn’t make Him real. His existence does.

The next time you encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, remember that it is through God’s revelation that we have come to know His Real Presence--it is not because we closed our eyes and hoped really hard.

Janet Cassidy
The Catholic Times