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You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. If there’s one thing Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies failed to teach Becky Sharp in William Thackeray’s novel, Vanity Fair, that was it. Although Thackeray’s book was a satire on English society in 1917, some things are just universal—like the endless pursuit of pleasure.

I remember when the first fast-food hamburger place opened in my hometown, Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1950s. Before McDonald’s, we had Taylor Burgers, and the first soft-serve ice cream and milkshakes came oozing from those magical machines with the touch of a button. The burgers were mediocre, as I remember, but the French fries—tossed around in hot, oily baskets with a blizzard of salt covering every surface of each morsel—changed a generation of taste buds forever. As hungry Baby Boomers grew up to become successful yuppies, we were easy targets for the Super-Size-It campaign and were quick to agree that we did deserve a break today.

Fast food was the gateway drug for this massive group of consumers. By the 60s we had quickly extended our quest for pleasure—drugs, sex and alcohol had failed to put out the fire that seemed to burn brighter with each passing decade. Many of the kids who opted to “turn on, tune in and drop out” in their teens refocused their search inward by their 20s. Eastern religious practices infiltrated the American counter culture and eventually became part of the established spiritual landscape of pleasure-weary pilgrims.

Traditions with Buddhist roots offered the most radical approach to dealing with the abuse of pleasure. One such teaching says that greed, or lust—the Pali term is tanha—binds us to pleasure through the senses, with the result that we become addicted to those pleasures unless we choose to free ourselves from their grip. Either, or. Nothing in between. So when the eye sees something beautiful, or the ear hears a pleasing sound, or the nose smells an enticing aroma, or the tongue tastes a culinary delight, or the body touches something sensual or even when the mind discovers an intriguing idea, tanha, the strongest bond of desire, takes over our lives, leaving us slaves to our passions.

I was in my mid 40s when I hit the wall, having abused my mind and body with too much of many things. The spiritual path I chose in search for healing wasn’t grounded in Buddhism, but in Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions. While I continued (of necessity) to live in “the world” as a wife and mother, I devoted myself to spiritual practices learned from—and more appropriate for—Orthodox monks and nuns. For three years I tried to deny myself pleasures on several fronts, tuning out secular music, literature, television and movies. Taking on a regimen of prayer and fasting designed for those living in monasteries, I set myself up for failure—because I couldn’t sustain this level of asceticism. My passions leaked out in numerous ways, and I found myself seeking the same high from spiritual practices that I had once achieved through abuse of food, alcohol and other things. About this time in my life I discovered the famed classic of Russian spirituality: The Spiritual Life, by Saint Theophan the Recluse.

Theophan wrote that man has three levels of life—the spiritual, the intellectual and the physical, and that each level has needs. Spiritual needs, he said, are most important, and when they are met in a healthy way, a person will move from that position of peace to meet the needs of the mind and the body, creating harmony of thoughts, feelings, desires and pleasure. Harmony. Balance. That’s what I wanted all along—to have my cake and eat it, too.

My search has taken me to exotic places in the pursuit of pleasure, including the beaches of Monaco, Trinidad, Bermuda, Hawaii, and the nearby coasts of Alabama and Florida. I’ve also fasted and prayed at numerous monasteries and sought enlightenment through pilgrimages to holy places in Greece, England, and even in this country. But it’s been my lot to find the beginnings of that elusive balance back home in Memphis, Tennessee, where I no longer beat up on myself when I fail to keep the Orthodox fast perfectly. Or when I skip my morning prayers or drink one too many margaritas. Instead, I take heart from one of Brian Andreas’ StoryPeople prints hanging on the wall just above my computer monitor. It’s a whimsical stick figure drawing of a woman riding a bicycle, with a basket containing an odd-shaped blue object with several spots on it. The caption says it well:

“She went everywhere with a basket filled daily with a fresh blueberry muffin. It’s either that or cigarettes, she said. I am only strong enough for a life of partial virtue.”

­Susan Cushman lives in Memphis, where she is working on a memoir, painting Byzantine-style icons, and trying to live a life of partial virtue. Her essays have ­appeared in skirt!, Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, First Things, and the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Magazine. She blogs at penandpalette-susancushman.blogspot.com.