Paul Poulton on the benefits of moderation

Paul Poulton

The "M" word is not actually found in the Bible, although it may be, depending on what translation you use. But there are many scriptures that allude to it. Let me explain.

When I was 16 I had a friend named Jim. Jim hated trifle and the reason why he hated trifle was because he used to love trifle. He loved it so much that he once ate a whole large bowl of the solidified custard, tinned fruit, sponge cake and cream in one go and since then he has hated it, just to look at it made him feel sick. I sympathised with Jim because I myself have a similar story with Caramac Chocolate bars. I'm wondering if there's some kind of universal law involved here.

This week a London cinema has screened every single episode of Lost back to back. Fans of Lost camped overnight in the hope of being part of the audience. During the 80 hours of the cinematic marathon paramedics will be on site in case any of the audience shows signs of being entertained to death.

Endurance entertainment is gaining ground in our modern lives. Steve Misiura watched all 238 episodes of Friends back to back, it took him 84 hours. He said, "I love Friends but this did indeed hurt. At around 72 hours I wanted to die".

It's a mark of the age we live in, we want it all and we want it now. We can get music, movies and TV series in one big gulp. Some years ago we used to be content to wait a whole week before the next episode of a TV series, now we can scour the net to try and find a torrent. I used to order an album from the record store and wait a week or two for it to arrive; I can now quickly get several albums onto my iPod in a few clicks. I'm not complaining, I quite like it. But with each new turn in the road we have to watch out for new dangers.

The danger as I see it is that the endurance-entertainment mentality can easily wend its way into our lives as a whole until it's not unusual for it to become a normal and expected event. Young people particularly are under pressure to have a 'good time' on their birthday and you may be thought of as slightly odd if you don't. A recent headline stated, 'A holiday-maker died in Ibiza while celebrating his 27th birthday after drinking excessively and taking recreational drugs.' The pathologist determined the cause of death as 'acute ethanol toxicity'. The very fact that we now call some drugs 'recreational' tells us that we have already accepted them as an extension of our leisure activities.

Some people may say, 'Well, people shouldn't take drugs or get drunk'. I am one of those people. Is binge eating better than binge drinking though? Another headline we saw was, 'A man died just as he was about to win a university binge eating contest.'

The Bible is ready to give us some advice about this new age we live in and it uses a word that's not too popular in today's culture - 'moderation'. Sorry if you were thinking of another word beginning with M. But that's the thing, the word moderation is boring; it's not exciting and it doesn't have much place in the way we live our lives today. 'I can stay in front of my computer all weekend if I want.' And it's true, some people have to be coerced or even dragged away from their monitors.

Moderation is important for us humans. In the middle of the Bible there is a section about time. There is a time for every activity under heaven. Trouble ensues when we give more time or energy to any activity than it really deserves. We begin to lose our freedom rather than gain it. When something has a hold on us we lose a little of our humanity. God has made us to be free, not held captive by anything. So moderation is actually a word that is life-affirming not life-inhibiting.

I recently wrote a song called "The Nature Of Time" here's one of the verses:

Take a small diversion, then be sure to abstain
What starts as pleasure can end as pain
Get some moderation, do not tarry or dwell
'Cause what you think is heaven could turn out to be hell.