I suspect simply announcing that I’m a pastor, unpublished novelist, and published restaurant critic doesn’t mean much in an online world where identities can be shaped without any fixed reference points. For this reason I’d like this experiment and late entry into the BLOG phenomenon to hitch any personal travails or epiphanies to several ideas I’m chewing on.
IDEA ONE – one of the better metaphors for life is that of JOURNEY
Light years from original, but still helpful.
IDEA TWO – we need FOOD for any journey worth taking
Already my love of food surfaces… I believe we can’t pack enough to make it to any place worth going. We are going to need to find food along the way. Scavenge a bit. Get off the beaten track and forage.
Fear always says we’ll run out… probably tomorrow. We’ll starve in the stretch of desert we all know is coming. Not that I think all desert is necessarily bad—all the best roads are full of desert stretches. But this said… and it is easy to say… real desert will never feel like anything but death and I for one am afraid of death. Pastor-smaster.
I sign up for every tour package that guarantees a route to the Promise Land without any desert time. And every time I do, the bus gets high centered on what looks to me like a sand dune. The guy up front with the microphone (who took my money) flatly denies that the wasteland outside is anything more disturbing than extensive parking for the Wonderful World of Disney up ahead, but I’ve started to wonder.
Now I’m toying with setting off without one more tour package and just a few friends. I’m afraid because no matter what the man up front says, it really looks like desert outside the door. But I’ve heard a few whispers of people who left buses before me and survived… whispers of a God who doesn’t charge tour prices and still provides a TRAVELING FEAST. I figure that either the whispers are true or I’m dead.
That second option would scare me more if I hadn’t noticed the skeletons in the seats at the back of the bus. The guy up front tells us to ignore them… that they died on tours that cost less than what we paid and that we really will get moving again and everything will be just dandy.
But I’ve decided to get off the bus and bet on the God of the whispers.
I would count it as confirmation that I’m not crazy and part of the TRAVELING FEAST if our paths cross in coming days, weeks, or years.
2 Comments:
Burke is right that the feast might include courses we wouldn't order on our own. I wonder if one of the benefits Brenda is suggesting has just to do with the pace. Just slowing down changes the experience a great deal. I also agree with Charles in his encouragement to pay attention to who you hook up with along the way, though at times we end up traveling and eating with those we wouldn't have put on the guest list if such a thing existed once you leave the tour. Possibly one of the unexpected gifts of foot travel is not only who you invite along but who shows up that you'd never have thought to invite.
A perfect metaphor for you (come to think of it...I love food too). The marriage of food, fellowship and faith was culminated in a perfect (IMHO) little book called: The Supper of the Lamb.
I would be game to virtually read it with you - although I do know that you are more likely to buy it than read it!
The Supper of the Lamb
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