As my girth and sermon illustrations make obvious, I enjoy
food: growing food, buying food, reading and talking about food, preparing and
comparing food, and, most of all, eating food. As much as I enjoy food,
everything tastes better when at table with my bride. Breakfast with Nancy is
the best part of the day. Breaking bread with members of our family is even
better, as lively conversation, memories remembered, and memories made make
simple meals feasts. Dinner parties with good friends, new friends, and
strangers throw light on the distinctions that make us unique and illumine the
depth and breadth of what we share. It's hard to hide at table, and easy to be
vulnerable enough for wonders to emerge.
My love of food could lead to gluttony. If eating were
an end in itself, excess could turn table fellowship into competition and
transform gustatory joy into lewd gorging. Avoiding those sins is not simply a
matter of good physical health; it is a spiritual and moral issue as well.
Wendell Berry stated this clearly three decades ago in his essay, "The
Gift of the Good Land":
To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of
Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a
sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a
desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to moral loneliness, and
others to want.
When I eat without knowing something about my kindred
creatures who died in making my repast or sacrificed in bringing it to me, I
fail to recognize my dependency on others. When I eat without respect for the
labor and love that provide my feast, hubris separates me from the deepest
blessings of the meal. Increasing my consciousness of the wonders that
transpire each time I eat can deepen my gratitude for my blessings and help me
to commit to helping others share similar gifts of God and grace.
In many ways, our signature ministry of feeding the hungry
begins at our own tables. How much of the bounty we eat comes from soil near
us? As we support local food producers, we save energy, help small farms, and
connect more fully with the ground on which we walk and the air we breathe. As
we enjoy more vegetables and fruits and relatively fewer meats, we conserve
water and energy and help to purify the air, while also making it easier not to
add girth. As we pay attention to the conditions faced by the migrant and third
world workers who harvest much of what we eat and to the impact of farm-raised
fish and mass marketed livestock, we put ourselves in a position to take more
responsible and moral actions. The aim is not to feel guilty about what we have,
but to deepen our desire to allow other creatures to thrive.
How much food do we waste? I'm not talking about my mother's
demand that I clean my plate because of starving children in China. How much
food do we throw away because we purchased it so inexpensively that we feel
little remorse when disposing of it? Most of us pass a produce or grocery store
several times each week. Purchasing food more often could increase the
freshness of what we eat, allow us to purchase smaller amounts, and leave us
with less on hand to spoil. With a little practice, it could also help us to
add more seasonal foods to our diet, possibly expanding our palates. Farmers
markets and an increasing number of organizations that deliver locally produced
foods to our doorsteps can have the same impact. Despite being raised in a
modest household, I did not discover turnips until this fall. I saw them on
sale at my favorite produce store, looked up a few recipes, and now have
another favorite dish to prepare.
What's the point? By becoming more aware of what I eat and
trying to eat more natural foods, I find God more present at our table. And, as
theologian Norman Wirzba notes in Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating,
"To eat with God at the table is to eat with the aim of healing and celebrating
the memberships of creation." I have a lot to learn about eating with God
at the table, but each lesson makes me more alive.
Bon Appétit,
LP
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