What is in a meal?

What is in a meal is more than just the dishes offered or the ingredients.  It is more than gluten, vegan or low carbs.  What is really important about a meal is the interaction.   I am writing this during the lunch rush at a popular deli. Almost every table has a few people engaged in conversation.  One table has a bunch of foreign nationals who are here attending school.  It is fun to see them chatting in their mother tongue.  It must feel great to have a break from immersion in a foriegn language and hear and speak your home language. At another table a handsome young man and a pretty young lady are not flirting, but the male displays his plumage while the female is pretending not to notice or be impressed.  I can’t really tell if she is impressed or not, neither can the male and I’m not sure if she knows.  There is another table nearby where two tech sorts are pouring over the screen of a laptop while animatedly discussing some point that would be lost on everyone except other tech sorts.  There is a large table in the corner where a group of young soldiers laugh, talk and render to each other good natured harassment.  A wife has just joined her husband, they are young, in love and thrilled with the moment away from work, kids, and other concerns.  They are having a sort of mini-vacation in the middle of the week. There is the young professional that just caught herself sort of dancing from the waist up to the catchy tune on the radio, to the amusement of her tablemates.  

What do they all have in common?  In one way or another and to different degrees, they are all building memories.  Who knows the afterword of the stories.  Maybe the flirting couple will get married and some day confess, “Remember the lunch at….”  The lonely foreign nationals may return home and always remember the oasis of home they shared over a meal.  The tech guys may build the next great O.S.  

Every meal is more than the food.  It is the connection that we make with each other.  It is the connection of laughter and tears, of stories and jokes, it is the holding of babies not your own, and getting a break from your kids.  The power of a shared meal is vital to the life and well-being of a family, a community, or a church.

This Sunday we will have the opportunity to build those kinds of relationships and bonds at church.  Every 5th Sunday of the month is our time to share a meal and in the process share life.  We are far from the ideal church, but every shared meal moves us a little closer in that direction.  Please join us Sunday, bring a dish to share and most of all, bring a heart to open to others and be filled with the grace of God’s people. 

Of big planes and little things

Charles Vernon Boys wanted to build a better scale.  To do that he needed to build a better balance arm.   Boys’ work for a better scale has been overshadowed by his other invention.  Boys believed that glass would make a better balance arm that metals.  Since glass is stronger than steel of the same size, a very fine rod of glass might be the balance arm Boys was looking for.  He developed the tool to make this ultra thin rod.  He created a special crossbow that would fire a glass rod, on end of which was moltan.  The result was a thread of glass.  On one occasion he was able to produce a thread 90 feet long.

Fast forward about 100 years and the Airbus A380 takes to the sky thanks in part to Boys’ discovery.  Rather than a typical aluminum hull, the largest passenger aircraft in the world has a hull composed, in part, of the material Boys discovered and developed.  You used it last night and this past summer and, without knowing it, for most of your life.  But we don’t call it glass rods or glass threads, we know it as fiberglass.  

It is a long way from a single thread of glass to the world wide 12.9 billion pounds produced In 2021.  But that is the point; it had to start somewhere.  There are big results from tiny or what seems to be inconsequential actions.  WE often think we have to do big things and great things and very noticeable things if we are going to make any impact.  That may be more a product of propaganda than of the historic record.  A great many world-shaking discoveries and accomplishments did not begin as a big deal.  

What I am suggesting is that we all should go and do little things, lots of little things.  Do them with grace, love and kindness because you never know what the result might be.  WE have been told to plan and act strategically.  We are to make a point of maximizing our impact through leveraged relationships and opportunities.  I once believed that, but I am having my doubts.  What I do not doubt is that caring relationships are built with small moments, things, words, and deeds.  And it is relationships that really make the greatest impact.  

Sin and a leaking toilet

As many of you know we bought a fixer upper home a little less than two years ago.  It is a wonderful home with, as they say in the business, good bones. However, that was a lot of fixing up to do.  Most of it was a matter of redecoration, but some things were a little more involved.

One of these was a toilet that would rock a little bit.  Now, I love a rocking chair as much as the next guy, but there are times I do not want my seat to rock.  The rocking was progressing and becoming more pronounced.  This manifestation convinced me that I needed to be proactive.  

As I began the process, I discovered that this symptom represented much deeper and more involved problems.  The rocking toilet was an outward manifestation of deeper problems.  The good news is the problem has been resolved.  However, it was not just a matter of wedging a penny under the edge of our porcelain bowl.  I will spare you the details, but I will say it was a job that required a lot of hard work.

As I worked on the project I began to think of it as a parable.  In our lives, and those we know, we often see the manifestation or the outward expression of more deep-seated issues.  We may see aggressive behavior without considering what is the root cause.  The passing sexual innuendo is noted without a thought of what is beneath.  The passion for comfort food is not associated with anything other than the taste we enjoy.

But what is on the surface often reflects something deeper within.  When we start looking deeper we find things we do not like or want to admit.  We realize that it is not just a short fuse, but a sinful, angry spirit or attitude that is the pattern for life.  The meaningless joke is not so meaningless because in our heart we really do believe we are better than others.  

Once we begin to pull back the facade we find there is a lot of hard work to be done to correct the problem.  We peel back one error and discover behind it something else and oftentimes something worse.  Dealing with the sin in our lives is not easy.  God will forgive us, but He respects us too much to violate our freewill and makes us want to be whole and righteous.  That partnership with God in our moving forward requires effort on our part. Sometimes it is hard work.

There is the option of ignoring the little issues of disobedience in our lives that may be indicators of deeper issues.  But, like a rocking toilet, it will only get worse and will one day collapse.  The difference is that having your toilet fall through the floor is a temporary disaster.   Falling through the practice of sin is more painful and can be eternally regretted.