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The Sacrifice and Delight of the Daily Meal
While not a book I’d unreservedly recommend, I have been recently enjoying Donald McCullough’s Say Please, Say Thank You: The Respect We Owe One Another. It’s sort of an “I’m not Emily Post and neither are you, but we can still be nice to each other� expose on modern manners. The best chapter so far is number 8, on the topic of meals.
Here’re a few excerpts:
“My oldest daughter recently celebrated her twenty-third birthday, and for me the day brought forth many memories of her growing from childhood through adolescence into young adulthood. . .When we spoke on the telephone she said she had been thinking about her most memorable birthday. . .what stood out in her mind was the ladybug cake her mother made on her sixth birthday. ‘There was just something about that cake,’ she said, ‘that made it so special.’ Well, it doesn’t surprise me that her recollection of a favorite celebration had to do with food. For most people, meals are like mountains on the landscape of memory; food and drink and conversation have formed peak experiences, summits standing tall against the terrain of the ordinary. . .
“Of all the wonderful gifts of the Creator, near the top of the list is the joy of eating. God, I presume, could have made us with neither the biological necessity nor the aesthetic pleasure of consuming nourishment. But I don’t think it’s entirely metaphorical when the psalmist says, ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good. . .’
“Sharing meals serves a very important purpose in helping us become more fully human: it helps strengthen the bonds of community. In an almost mysterious way, food and relationships are intimately connected. . .
“There are at least two reasons why eating establishes community: it makes possible both sacrifice and delight. In sharing a meal something is given, often with great labor or cost, and something is received, often with great pleasure. The giving and receiving, the sacrifice and delight, are two essential movements in the dance of human community. . . It seems to me there is an element of self-sacrifice when we take it upon ourselves to feed others. . . and in response to giving comes receiving, in response to sacrifice comes delight. So if you prepare a meal for me, it’s my responsibility – my solemn duty – to enjoy it. . .
“If we lose the art of sharing a meal with others, we will deprive ourselves of the self-giving and delight that are central for the creation of human community. If food is simply fuel, a pit stop at the golden arches will do just fine. But if it’s more, then we need to make space in our lives for eating that is neither cheap nor quick, an eating that not only fills our stomachs but ennobles our souls.�
I’m sure this stirs thoughts in your mind similar to those in mine – thoughts of desserts and meals made and received and shared with precious people.
I remember one of the first times as an “old� person that my mom took me out – just her and I. We went to Antoinette’s, a pretty uppity (at least in my mind at the time – I hadn’t been there before nor since) ice cream parlor. I was used to getting a Dilly Bar (Dad bought 5, we picked the color), but on this trip, we got to order off an ice cream menu and sit at a table. I don’t remember exactly what we ate, but I do remember it was huge and it was chocolate and I felt so grown up and special to be out with just my mom.
I also remember the last meal my sisters and I ate with my grandpa before he died. It was some sort of hotdish, I think, and he could hardly hold his fork, but he knew who we were, and that was all that mattered – sharing food together for the last time.
It’s funny how when you get thinking, so MANY memories revolve around food!
I remember how we used to drive two cars to church – one with older kids to Sunday school, and one with younger ones in time for church. If we rode home with Dad afterwards, we were occasionally treated to a bag of Combos to share, purchased at a gas station where he bought the Sunday paper. We’d relish them together in the back seat, debating over the proper method of consumption – bite it in two hunks or one hunk, or suck the filling out and then wait for the outside layer to dissolve in our mouths.
I remember (a more recent memory, but still a beautiful one) being with my grandma in Arizona and enjoying the supreme pleasure of Retirement Land, where you could get Whoppers for $1 at Burger King. We even had a coupon one day and got free fries and onion rings, all for only $1. We did this more than once and every time spent most of the meal watching the other people and priding ourselves in what cheap dates we were and what good food we could find for $1.
I bet I could write 20 pages on all the wonderful meal memories I have – buying a hot dog and pop on the street corner or at Charlie’s diner with Alice for $1.50 each; helping to lay one of the famous Valine outdoor spreads of grilled chicken, cheesy potatoes, Chinese salad, fruit, and green beans; making my tortilla soup and curling up with a World magazine to pine away a relaxing evening here in El Paso; sharing a meal for two by candlelight with Micah on his kitchen chairs in the dining room; eating a breakfast of cereal mixed with nuts and chocolate in the car on the way to Minnesota, always envying Micah who managed to eat his cereal out of the bag and saving the chocolate for last (why was mine so often the reverse of that?); sharing a meal with Josh and Noelle down in San Antonio, with the prior phone call (“Let’s eat together – I have meat, do you have salad?� “Yes, but no tomato� “I’ve got half of one; I’ll bring it!) – truly a SHARED meal!; Martha’s famous slice-the-bag-like-an-icing-bag egg salad, passed up with love on bread from the back seat of the car; going to Applebees with Hannah and taking her advice that when you’re out with a sister for a treat, it’s okay to get the big sundae; helping hotdish at any family crisis – ah, so many good memories enjoyed with the added pleasure of sacrifice in giving and delight in receiving.
It’s true that Jesus lived with this philosophy. After all, he was always sharing meals with people – sinners, tax collectors, his disciples, Judas – and in fact, before He died He established a meal that we are commanded to celebrate until He returns. Each Sunday when we partake of Communion, we are receiving the supreme sacrifice with supreme delight, in the company of thousands of the faithful in Heaven, crying “Holy, holy, holy!�
In each of our meals this week, let’s take time to slow down and thank the Lord for the sacrifice He’s made for us – a sacrifice that our weak efforts to give of ourselves in mixing and baking only feebly imitate. Let’s not complain about meal preparation, but embrace it as a chance to demonstrate God’s love to our families. When someone cooks for us, let’s remember our responsibility to receive with joy. And let’s treasure the memories we have of shared lives and shared meals as we continually “taste and see that the Lord is good!�
Posted by lilypress at June 23, 2006 4:39 AM
