The desire to look and feel young goes back a long way, as in all the way to the beginning. Death is our primary fear that drives so much other behavior, we will do anything to stave it off. Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, said, “…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” This attitude might have made Socrates a good match for my fictional woman with the cursed bananas, although he was not recorded as being attractive at all. She may have swiped left and passed on him.

If you doubt that we are chasing youth, just read or watch advertisements. Yesterday I was on the treadmill, chasing my own fountain of youth, and I could see a TV in the distance.

It showed a series of advertisements and infomercials: An infomercial with the late Larry King showed the incredible life-saving benefits of “Prostagenix,” a prostate supplement. Like any good snake-oil, having the letter X in the name goes a long way, as many supplements go this route, especially those marketed to men who are either obsessed with strength or desperately trying to hang on to the glory days of youth. Here’s a sampling of ‘X’ named companies and products that might give me eternal youth: Nugenix, Bodydynamix, NO XPLODE, Nitraflex, Oxide Booster, Vapor X5, XTEND, Shotgun 5X. All of these ‘X’ names sound technical and give me the impression of deep science revelations that could very well conquer death. Cellucor C4 is literally named to sound like an explosive made by a biomedical lab. Then there are things like Total War and Bucked Up, which sound like supplements that the Greek gods Ares and Priapus would take, except the Olympian gods don’t need to supplement anything because they are myths that don’t age. They are not real. The myths of ancient Greece are not even written like the Gospels where clearly Jesus and the Apostles lived in a specific time and place. The Greek gods were obvious stories meant to match specific phases of life, and seasons of the year, and human experiences. But as men, we would really like to be pinned to certain gods as if it were a permanent buddy-system, so we can stay in our twenties and thirties. The problem is, one day you must switch from taking pre-workout biotech chemistry elixirs to “please just keep me alive” prostate health supplements. Talk about humbling, but it comes for us all sooner or later.

The next infomercial was an ad for a battery-powered device that sprays tanning dust onto skin, and apparently this is targeted to women. The “Breeze” device ad showed middle-aged to elderly women being transformed into young flowers of the field by an application of orange dust. The ad itself was so airy and bright that I had thought perhaps this infomercial had been recorded in the same room that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about in the The Great Gatsby, when Nick the narrator first goes to East Egg and realizes how the rich, young, beautiful people live:

The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. (from The Great Gatsby - Chapter 1)

That was the look and feel of the infomercial setting. However, the spraying of this paint on faces seemed very unnatural amid the hyper-natural, if not heavenly, atmosphere of the white-clad studio. As the women sprayed the dust onto their faces I eventually thought of the phrase, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return,” but I never considered the dust would be orange.

Finally, someone turned the TV to ESPN, the channel that dedicates all of its time to celebrating youth and glory. The first advertisement that I saw was about low testosterone, with two aging legendary sports figures pitching the sale. In their obvious post-retirement leisure time, having achieved much success and notoriety through physical prowess but clearly not enough money to avoid getting lured into endorsements, the athletes casually stroked golf balls down the driving range, looking confident and strong. Their faces were slightly weathered from the march of time and, of course, their gritty play on the baseball and football fields. *wink* One of the greatest baseball sluggers of my lifetime, Frank Thomas, discussed the need for testosterone supplements with Doug Flutie, the plucky underdog quarterback who threw arguably the greatest Hail Mary touchdown pass in history. Their nonchalance and openness about aging signaled that it was no big deal to admit their bodies were changing. Sagging energy and muscles - that was normal! Floundering virility in the bedroom did not get mentioned openly but between the lines the word “flaccid” seemed to hide. The closed-captioning read like a parent talking to an adolescent about puberty. Paraphrasing the message, I read this: “Hey bud, it’s ok that you can’t hit home runs and drink hard and have sex all day any more. Neither could we. That is, we couldn’t until we started taking these pills and powders. You can do it, too, friend, with this product.”

In the 1990s, the snake oil and cure-all elixirs were not so dressed up and well-marketed. In fact, I think the 19th century hawkers of cure-alls, like those portrayed in the Little House on the Prairie had a better story for selling than what I recall in the 1990s. The horny goat weed and aphrodisiacs, not to mention “energy boosting” ephedrin, not only sounded like snake-oil but even looked like it. You could buy things at the gas station, either in the bathroom vending machine, or discreetly at the register. There was the courtesy at the checkout line where the cashier would kindly not make eye contact as the customer said, “Just the soda and candy bar,” as he furtively snatched a packet of horny goat weed and added it to the pile. But today, the sale of Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice is wrapped in very attractive marketing, with legendary, fatherly ex-athletes doing the shilling. Going back to that difficult reference to “boiling goats” from an earlier episode - isn’t it fascinating that the book of Exodus prohibits Canaanite fertility rituals that also involved goats, which we consider to sound archaic? Yet in our sophisticated, enlightened time, many people still take something called “horny goat weed” to preserve youth and virility, and it can be found in various supplements under more gentle names today. Now we have official pharmaceuticals from major corporations stamping approvals on snake oil to increase virility. Pfizer has replaced the ritual of the boiling of the baby goat with lab work, and again, if Exodus were written today, the warnings about joining the surrounding culture would be different.

I think we all owe an apology to used-car salesmen, because everyone knows that the used car salesman is trying to make a dollar and will try to squeeze blood from a turnip, or more appropriately, a contract out of a lemon. But the real snake-oil salesmen today are very polished, very smooth, with terrific stories and targeting and know exactly which insecurities we need to feed. How do they know? Because our private thoughts have been purchased from our phone data. In fact, I think that used car sales is now one of the few honest trades left amid the whitewashed tombs known as corporations, where externally virtue is portrayed through marketing, while the real business operation ruthlessly seeks wealth and consolidation of power. The polish and shine of Google and Amazon advertising is like putting a silk hat on Jabba the Hut.

Let’s get back on track.

What’s interesting, once again, is that the Garden of Eden story can be seen in advertising. Did you know - the word “serpent” could alternatively be translated as “the shiny one”? The shiny one is slippery and deceptive. I think this would help people get over the stumbling block of the “talking snake” problem, because when we are talking about something difficult like temptation and sin, we don’t necessarily think of a serpent, but everyone knows deceptive, slippery people, and that is what the enemy really is. The snake works great for children and people who have returned to faith, because the understanding of the serpent as a slippery, deceptive being makes sense. But for the fallen away, the idea of a talking animal makes them raise their eyebrows in doubt.

Marketing departments know exactly which wound to poke for each of us, and we all have one or more. We have been carrying along lies our entire lives: that we are unattractive or stupid, or we have fears of powerlessness or shame or rejection. What we want is to feel loved and respected, healthy and safe. Thus, the best way to sell something is to remind us that we are none of those good things, that our wound is still a major problem, and that we could get over that wound if we just bought or ingested a product. This is exactly why you don’t get Superbowl ads simply showing Jesus hanging on the Cross for thirty seconds - it’s just terrible for sales, even though he is the only thing that actually can heal every single one of those insecurities and wounds.

But let’s go back to Socrates for a moment, as he is perhaps one of the most admirable people to ever walk the earth. By his own words, he felt that celebrating health and physical accomplishment while pursuing wisdom made for the most worthwhile pursuits. That seems difficult to disagree with for a modern person today. Diet, health, and exercise - these are the obsessions of so many now, along with knowledge. So for a moment, I just want to compare Jesus and Socrates, as both of these men changed the world, but in quite different ways.

The fact that Socrates was recorded as being unattractive is interesting. Someone felt the need to write down that he was a “squat, unattractive, barefoot man… with bulging eyes, large lips, and a pot belly.” We never hear anything about Jesus, as to whether he was handsome or what his eyes looked like. Every portrayal of him shows the effects of poverty and fasting, and rather than physical attributes, the one thing we know for sure is that he is universally depicted as having humility. The reason I bring up Socrates here at the end of this series is because there are similar parallels in the lives of him and Jesus, but Socrates saw bodily health and wisdom as the heights of human pursuit, whereas Jesus advocated for humility and prayer, with the body only needing its “daily bread.”

Most interesting of course, is that both of these men became martyrs, but Jesus’ choice to accept death was very different from Socrates. On the night before he died, Jesus talked about drinking from “the cup” that symbolized his suffering. This is a curious word choice, as 400 years earlier, Socrates chose to die by drinking from a literal cup of tea containing deadly hemlock. Jesus talked about drinking from the cup, but his cup, his trial and death, was far more brutal and awful. Socrates’ death came like a deep sleep, while Jesus’ execution came in wave after wave of pain and abandonment. At seventy years old, the death of Socrates happened like a sophisticated modern euthanasia, where he was chilling with friends and giving a fine speech. Jesus accepted a much different cup, not with one poison in it, but with every possible poison in it. The cup Jesus consumed contained all the ugliness of human sin. These cups could not be more different, despite both cups leading to the same ending of death by execution. Socrates gives a hopeful speech in the end, with honest words about his uncertainty about an afterlife: “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.” Then he drinks the poison tea. He goes into death almost fearlessly, it seems, and those around him are struggling more than Socrates.

Jesus on the other hand is abandoned and in a suffocating agony for hours. He doesn’t have a speech, but instead has the “last seven words” from the cross, which includes his prayers for his tormentors (“Forgive them, for they know not what they do”) and he gives total certainty about the afterlife to the the good thief next to him. He tells the thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

These two endings are only the same in the martyrdom, but not at all in the details or message or expectations.

So how did Socrates feel about the self, the body, and growing old? His own words (or the words of his student, Xenophon, who wrote the words) tell us that Socrates may not have fully bought into the “grain of wheat” parable. The Greek was a caretaker of his body, and a lover of exterior beauty. Socrates was a man who spent the day at the gym and arguing about wisdom. Frankly, it sounds like a great life. Lifting, praying, and intellectual pursuits? Sign me up.

Years ago, the realization dawned on me that Jesus never attended a gym. There is not one parable about lifting rocks on leg day or running a 10K, and he never advises anyone about a low-carb diet. In fact, he’s always talking about carbs, not protein. Bread. In particular, he says he is the “bread of life” when he introduces the institution of the Eucharist. But Socrates is known to have spent much of his time at a gym. I’m just guessing here, but Socrates was likely jacked if he spent all his time at the gym. Perhaps he had sweet traps and triceps, like the people you can observe at every gym in America who carry around gallons of water and grunt while bench pressing six plates. Jesus is often portrayed as a thin, nearly sickly looking man, and the idea of him even entering a gym to exercise is laughable. There is just no way Jesus would be a gym member.

So I laughed. And then the sense of humor wore off. I stopped laughing because I realized I’d stumbled across a major problem.

I realized that every time I go to the gym, I am not dying to self. No, not at all. At the gym, I am watering and fertilizing my wheat plant, as if I were going to live forever. I’m supposed to be letting the seed die and fall to the ground, but I’m spending lots of time on a dryland version of the Fountain of Youth. Every moment spent at the gym is not living in line with the Gospel. The gym is all about me, and truly most of us attending the gym have vanity and lust scribbled all over their bodies. For goodness sakes, the walls are covered in mirrors! Then I realized: I am just like the woman with the cursed bananas! (Bet you wonder how this all tied together, right? So did I.)

I enjoy the gym. I like going to the gym. But as I imagine I’m aiming to live a Christian life, I’m fooling myself. The trick I always forget is that just when I think I’ve escaped the devil, that is, the “slippery one,” that’s when he’s probably steering me exactly where he wants me to go. Best to assume that he is somehow tempting me, and pray for God’s mercy, and since I always need help, it never hurts to ask for the angels and saints to join me, or to ask for Mary to intercede and crush his nasty head with her heel. The spiritual combat we all have to face has far better moves and more skill than both professional wrestling and Ultimate Fighting Championship combined, so it is wise to call in the whole crew, even if only a false alarm in the end. Perhaps it’s only a cat stuck in a tree, but I call the fire department, ambulance, and police. To ask for God’s will to be done often requires it, especially when my own will wants attention.

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