[todaysdate]
By Eric Blauer
Take the time to make something delicious this holiday season and give it away as a witness to the radical grace of God’s goodness.
It’s a holy act to feast on something that is made for pure pleasure. It’s a virtue that is often difficult to surrender to because of the inner fundamentalists inside us do-gooder type people. In its perfect place, feasting is an act of rebellion! It proclaims that we have all we need in this moment and we can eat more than we need because we trust in the bounty of God for tomorrow. Miserliness isn’t holiness, it’s most often fear masquerading as wisdom. We must never lose the wild proclamation of Jesus’s first miracle which was to make way too much wine for a party!
During the holidays the “No Monster” is all around slapping our hands, scolding and nagging us with threats and regrets. Our failure to live moderately and purposefully has ruined many people’s freedom to party! Through overindulgence we have lost the joy of indulgence in it’s proper place and time.
With all the time we are saving with faster transportation, smart phones, instant foods, microwaves, fast food joints and online shopping, you’d think we would have enough time to cook, but unfortunately it’s a lost art or one in danger of being forgotten.
One of the traditions we have in our home is the act of making caramel corn and giving that away as a gift during the Christmas season. My wife has a few old recipes from the family cookbook that she uses to create a simple but enjoyable gift. It feels like a sacred moment when you place a small gift of yummy in someone’s eager hands. That practice has been at the heart of present giving since we began connecting Christ and the nativity gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh with Christmas.
I hope our kids will continue the practice of cooking, hospitality and gift giving and that their kitchen will be a small sanctuary from which the gospel of goodwill towards man will be sweetly proclaimed and consumed.
Prayer to put the Jolly back in the Feasting:
“O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. Give us this day our daily taste.
Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in, and sauces which are never the same twice.
Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with,
and casseroles that put starch and substance in our limp modernity.
Take away our fear of fat and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron’s beard.
Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations.
Above all, give us grace to live as true men – to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand.
Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and darkness;
cast out the demons that possess us;
deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition;
And set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve Thee as Thou hast blessed us – with the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Amen.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection
Oh I love this! What a different way to look at eating as celebration!
Your carmel corn tradition sounds wonderful. We Jews give gifts of food during Purim and those gifts are always some of my favorite to give and receive.
What kind of foods?
Love this! I was just reflecting myself on our reluctance to celebrate the joy of rich, delicious food. I am on a retreat, and yesterday I practised being intentional – and made myself eat each meal with no distractions and no multi-tasking. I thoroughly enjoyed food that I fixed myself ‘from scratch’ and savored each bite. I also learned that if I am paying attention to enjoying the food, and stop when the next bite no longer excites me (even if I don’t ‘feel full’) I don’t over eat. I eat just enough, no matter how delicious! Now I need to add your gifting to the practice!!
Yay! Intentional eating is at the heart of finding balance and health in my estimation.