Food For Thought

Food.  Simply delicious.  Ya.....let's start with food.

Our bodies will not survive without food.  We need nutrients to survive.  But we are not hung out to dry.  We HAVE food.  Apples, oranges, lettuce, yogurt, milk, chicken, steak, pasta, bread, fish, shrimp, bananas, peanut butter, coffee, pies, lobster, I must stop otherwise I'll be heading upstairs again.  That is the first miracle.  We have the exact same nutrients on this earth that our body needs. Our body needs 4 food groups to function properly, our good friends Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod remind us, and our world is perfectly set up to provide us with all four.  Simply amazing.

But it doesn't stop there.   We have taste buds!  Taste buds!!!  Bumps on my tongue that allow me to ENJOY these things.  Saliva to mix in the juices.  Teeth to break it down!  Yikes!  We begin to really, actually enjoy it - to take pleasure in it.  Mix in spices, flavors, ingredients, ovens, BBQs, marinades, sauces and you have a whole array of possibilities to feed yourself with.   And we all are different, unique.  Created differently.  We all enjoy different tastes, different foods.  But there is something each one of us enjoy and love.  Something that all we can do is just close our eyes and well......mmmm.  I can't explain it - you have to taste it to understand.  Then our tastes we have are so vast, and so diverse it would take a lifetime to taste them all.  What a gift it is!  Anyone who has eaten at the Keg or Lauren Miller's can attest to the beauty and creativity of the art of flavour (and if you haven't - you should!).  It's more than just a meal.

I'm sure God could have done it another way.  We could have taken pills everyday.  Our bodies could have been self-sustainable or something.  We could have eaten one meal a month or something.  Or food could have been like taking needles - painful, irritable and disgusting - like eating tar.   But no, we get the opportunity, the gift, the joy of stuffing ourselves with an array of exquisite tastes everyday - three times a day.  Wow.

Then relationship enters the picture.  Food brings us together.  There is a reason for the 5 course meal.  Why do you think Jesus had a last supper with his friends and reminds us to do the same.  There is something about sitting down with a group of people, spending time with each other, and just enjoying an evening of  great food and drinks together.  It's one of the greatest gifts and joys of life.  To eat, drink and be merry.  You will often find joy, fulfillment, happiness and contentment around a dinner table.  We get the opportunity to come together and take a break from "life" as we know it and really enjoy real "life" around the table.  3 times.  Everyday.

I think it hurts us, when we begin to let things steal away such an awesome gift.  Things like fast food are not only unhealthy for their calories.  TV dinners.  Meal replacements.  All are missing the point.  They are just sustaining us.  We are too busy.  Just getting it over with.  We become too busy to even eat.  During harvest, my favorite part of the day is supper.  My mother brings out this fantastic, huge, hot meal out to us.  I have cold milk, 4 vegetables (you should have tasted the corn last meal), a delicious cut of meat, dessert (although I never eat it, she always brings it), and of course tea.  Yes I realize I am spoiled...lol....I love you Mom.  But there is nothing more beautiful than sitting in the wide-open field, with fresh air, open skies, the sun setting through the dust, and eating a meal with my family.  That is life.  It sure beats a Big Mac from drive-thru.  

I think God in his foresight, in his wisdom, beauty and creativity - created us this way. Food is and was always intended to be a great blessing for us.  First, he places us on a world that gives us an unfathomable variety of food to sustain us all, then he gives us taste buds to thoroughly enjoy it and actually take pleasure in it, and lastly, he knows, when done right, meals will ultimately pull us all together.  And as it pulls us all together, it pulls us closer to him.  Being relational beings we feel most at home with other people - fully alive with each other.  Around the table is the perfect place.  The relational aspect of our characters is ignited.  We can begin to understand the relational groan he has for us from his own heart.  He said at the last supper - when you do this, remember me.  It starts to make sense.  As we realize that we are at home around a table, together, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, enjoying each other, that he is there amongst us.  May we see, enjoy and celebrate him in our lives, especially around the table, and may we never forget the one who prepared it all.

Food eh......who knew.  Great idea.

My thoughts, not yours.

Ned

Babes Of Nate

Well.....Frank.  This one goes out to you....well with a side of Greg.  I guess the main thing is...I made it.

So I was hanging out with my nephew the other day, actually a few weeks ago.  Nate Jakob.  He is a beauty.  He is changing my life.  It's weird.  It happened with my niece Tristyn too....but its happening all over again.  

The little punk is quickly stealing my heart.  When he was here, I couldn't wait to get home and chase him, pick him up, shake him upside down, play our head shaking game and tattoo his chubby little arms like his uncles (which looked wicked by the way).  He truly is contagious.  I love to hang out with him.  He's hilarious.  A true entertainer.....a true McLean at heart.  

The funny thing is I have this weird attachment to him.......or facination......or tug towards him.  It's hard to explain.  Especially considering I'm not even his parent!!!  But what I'm beginning to realize is that what I'm really discovering is agape love in its truest sense.  A deeply, rooted, selfless love.  That is the tug....the pull.  Something that goes beyond my own care and attention.  To truly and  actually love something and someone more than myself.  No strings.  Nothing expected in return.  Sure I have seen glimpses before....but its not the same.   I am, I believe, beginning to understand the father/son relationship.  Hmmm....I think the Bible uses a lot of that language.  

The love between a father and son, mother and daughter, parents and children....is deep, heavy and passionate.  Something I know one day I will experience.  Which also has humbled me now, and given me a new found respect and honour for my own parents and how they see me.  But where does it come from.  Why do we have it?  I think it stems from something even bigger than ourselves.  It is a window into the the great love relationship that governs our very universe.

Is this why the Bible and Jesus used such language?   As far as I know, God has no sex.  He (best I can do) isn't male or female.  He has no sex.  He is uncreated.   He has no body.   He is timeless.  The best way to describe him actually is how he did  - I AM.  God, the father, doesn't literally have an actual "son" - as we understand it today.   There is no "sex life" or procreation going on within the trinity.   So why the language?  Why the analogy? 

Because, what it is describing, the RELATIONAL INTIMACY between the father and son, the  love relationship within the trinity DOES exist.

It's the same deep, abiding love relationship that I experienced with my nephew.  In fact that's where it stems.  God is talking to us in language we can understand.   We can understand the life, love, relationship and personal intimacy within the trinity, between Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit, because, as humans, we first love and understand the love between each other.  Especially between parents and children.

I'm beginning to see that none of this is a fluke.  I had often wondered why we come into the way we do.  It's so weird.   Inside a stomach?  Umbilical cord? (Ya I looked that word up.)  Why babies?  Why the development?  Why the poop?  Why the trust?  Why the learning?  Why the time?  Why not just BAM......your here......fully developed......like a Viva Beijing firework.  My sister is actually pregnant again and I caught myself staring at her.  I know that sounds weird, but I just stared at her gut.  There is a live human being INSIDE HER!  That is crazy.  Growing and forming inside her.  Its like the movie alien.  So weird.  Then after the birth, we have to spend time nurturing them, teaching them, caring for them, sharing with them and ultimately loving them.  This is, for a healthy upbringing,  the right, natural way of things.  Its no wonder or coincidence deep scars and lifelong problems are birthed here, when this process is skewed.  I think this creative process is there for a reason. 

Within this relationship we find trust, obedience, patience, perseverance, mercy, grace, joy, suffering...its all there.  It's not a fluke that we come into the world as innocent as babies.  Completely and totally dependant on the love of our parents to carry us through.  It's a glimpse into the very heart of the father, our creator.  He's teaching us about him.  About his character.  About how he sees us.  We begin to understand the concept of loving something so much we would die for it...for them.  We begin to see his love for us.   I've heard parents say this over and over again.  

This is what Nate is teaching myself.   I remember looking into Nate's eyes as I was tattooing his underarms and he looked at me with total trust.  The only reason he let me do that was because he felt safe with me.  He knew that the marker wouldn't hurt him, that I knew what I was doing.  He trusted me.  I can still see his eyes.  It clicked.  I thought to myself as I looked in his eyes.  I love you.  Of course I would never hurt you buddy.  I love ya.  In fact, I would do anything in this world to help you if you were in trouble.  I would protect you, I would fight for you.......I would die for you.

It seems to me I've heard those words before.  

John 3:16

These are my thoughts, not yours.

Ned