Mealtime
God’s sense of humor often makes me smile. As I decided to sneak in a few minutes of writing, I had just taken an odd assortment of what was left in our fridge and cupboards to try to make dinner for our family of six. We will be having a haphazard breakfast for dinner style meal. The breakfast pizza casserole recipe that I found will work just perfectly, especially since I dropped one of my remaining five eggs, and the recipe only needs three eggs. It calls for sausage, but really a half pound of bacon should be fairly similar to a pound of sausage, right? And the type of shredded cheese - is my crowd really going to notice that I used Colby Jack instead of Cheddar? I’m almost positive that a few changes here and there are just fine, and I even managed not to cut any fingers off as I sawed through frozen solid tater tots instead of running to the store to grab the recommended hashbrowns. At the rate I am going, (it’s currently 7:22 p.m. and the banana bread still has four more minutes in the oven), they are all just going to be happy to get SOMETHING! That’s what I’m depending on anyway for tonight’s “I need to go to the store but don’t feel like it” meal!
So as I referred back to my trusty copy of Liturgy of the Ordinary to remind myself of what I had jotted down as brief reminders of my next set of inspirations, I almost laughed out loud at the title of the next chapter: Eating Leftovers. God has His eye on the sparrow, but I can picture Him chuckling at me preparing our adventurous dinner tonight too as I steal a little time to do one of my favorite things in life: write.
Tish Harrison Warren pronounces that “as a culture we struggle with what it means to be not simply fed, but profoundly and holistically nourished” (62), and this metaphor that she writes about fits surprisingly well with my track of thought so far this week.
As a mom, I spend a lot of time with food-related tasks: I create the meal plan for the month, keeping in mind what time we can actually all find a few moments to eat dinner and to process what would be easiest to make that night, I make the list of what we need to make those meals, I clip the coupons (digitally mostly these days), I go to the store and do the whole “choose it, put it in the cart, take it back out to be scanned, put it back in the cart/bag, push it out to the van, lift the bag into the vehicle” thing - fortunately my kids and husband are usually waiting for me at home to help me unload them at least! I am the main food creator at our house, although my husband does sometimes cook on the grill and puts things from the freezer into the oven as necessary. I also tend to be the one who puts the leftovers away and cleans up the mess in the kitchen after the preparations.
Last week we went camping with my parents, and that always necessitates teamwork and brainstorming to figure out who will bring what and how we will eat. At this point in her life, my mom is used to finding daily sustenance for herself and sometimes my dad, who happens to be a very independent guy and capable cook. So her idea of lunch - a handful of cereal and some blueberries… a bowl of grape tomatoes…a McDonald’s ice cream cone… don’t necessarily meet the expectations of our three teenagers and our fourth who’s 12 but has the appetite of two teens these days. When you’re not used to feeding eight people, it can feel like a challenging task!
But the important thing with all of this is that the act of sitting together for sustenance is something that God puts great value upon; look at how we remember Jesus’ death until He comes again: a Communion meal! The “breaking of the bread” that we do together unites us in a powerful way. We need to remember that these times of togetherness are not just nourishing our body but also helping us to reconnect with the people around our tables and nourishing our relationships. The food that goes onto the table and into our mouths is secondary to the ideas in our heart and coming out of our mouths that we share together. But yet, they are united and both contribute to the overall atmosphere of our dining experience.
Spend some time together thinking about where the priority is during your mealtimes together as a family. Remember what the Bible says in John 6:27 “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Enjoy the food that God has provided you with at your meals but also find opportunities to multiply the blessing of eating with nourishing each other’s souls with healthy conversation.