“Andy Warhol (1928-1987) started out as a very successful commercial illustrator, and became a painter, photographer, printmaker, film and video maker, magazine publisher, author, and celebrity. He had his first art show in 1962, at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles which showed his "32 Campbell's Soup Cans." From that point on Warhol's work revolutionized the art world.” – Amazon.com
Warhol held onto his physical junk with the same tenacity we hold on to our spiritual junk. We don’t want to let it go. To justify ourselves, we repackage it as something artistic, romantic even. Promiscuity becomes free love. Anger becomes open, honest expression. Selfishness becomes self-actualization. We stubbornly resist God’s offer to overcome our possession obsession because we love our junk.
Michel Lotito had an unusual appetite, diagnosed from an early age with Pica, a rare phsycological disorder, causing him to "compulsively swallow non-food items," everything from metal and wood to plastics and rubber.
Over the course of his life it has been reported that he consumed 11 bicycles, 7 shopping carts, 1 steel safe, 1 cash register, 1 washing machine, 1 television, and hundreds of meters of steel chains, turning his penchant for curious consumption into a lucrative entertainment career.
Lotito admitted that eating his first bicycle was not easy. "I started with the metal parts, and only after that came the rubber tires," Lotito recalled. "The tires were really difficult to eat. Metal has no taste, but rubber is very unpleasant."
However, these meals were nothing compared to his largest meal—a Cessna airplane. Yes, Lotito, over the span of a few years, is said to have consumed an entire airplane made of tons of aluminum, steel, and rubber.
Turns out, the French entertainer had a superhuman digestive system which was incredibly resilient enough to endure consuming just about anything.
After examining his stomach, he was told by doctors he was capable of consuming 2 lbs (907 grams) of metal per day due to his extra thick stomach lining and intestines.
Lotito may have been able to eat practically anything, but he still had to take care of himself in the process. Therefore, he had quite a useful technique to minimise any internal damage.
In 1980, a newspaper reported: 'Lotito must be very careful. He lubricates his system with mineral oil, for one thing. He also stretches the meal over several days. He chops all the metal into pellets, and washes them down with copious amounts of drinking water.'
Lotito's unusual appetite, though his body was uniquely suited to "endure" it, was neither healthy nor genuinely gratifying. Nothing in those nuts and bolts and tires could actually nourish or satisfy his body's physical needs. And no amount of feeding the desires of his mental disorder could satisfy the emptiness of his spirit. Like Lotito, we are self-deceived if we think otherwise.
The Bible teaches about the dangers of excessive or unnatural desires. Human cravings, when not aligned with God's will, can lead to emptiness, dissatisfaction, or even destruction. Just as eating metal is harmful to the body, indulging in desires outside of God's design are damaging to the soul.
“Each one is tempted when, by this own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:14-15).
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind" (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV).
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16, ESV).