I stopped into a convenience store Sunday for a diet soda, one of my remaining weaknesses, and like every other convenience store in America, I had to pass by the chip-category junk food to get out the door.

It wasn't a problem in the "I'm on a diet" sense, because I've been clean of that stuff for a good many years, and I maintain enough of my spiritual fitness, for today, to not stray near the edge of a weak decision. 

But all this time free from processed foods has given me a clarity I never had before, and awareness for the unhealthy notions that flit through my head. As I walked past the Bugles, I thought how much I'd like to them. Not just a couple, or a couple handsful. All of them. In the store. As a start.

You have to understand: I've enjoyed more release from obesity — a 155-pound weight loss maintained almost 20 years — than most people. Greater than the weight I've lost is the breadth of my gains: serenity, wholesome disciiple, better and deeper relationships, the ability to forgive (and why it's so important, as a selfish act if not for any better reason), a wife! a son!

So you think I'd know better, right? And, well, I do — or I did, at least in that situation. But my point is that it never goes away, this desire to dive into the crap. Doesn't matter how much I know, how much I feel, how much I've lost, how much I've gained.

It does not go away. 'Least, it hasn't for me.