food and spirit

Question: If you were to compare your connection to food with your connection to the divine, what kind of meal would it look like? Would your prayer/quiet/meditation time be more like…

• a cup of yogurt?
• a frozen pizza?
• a burger, fries and a coke?
• an all-you-can-eat buffet?
• or fine French dining?

This is a question I would like to explore in the next few weeks and maybe even beyond.

Like you, I’m pretty busy. Sometimes I have to get by with a yogurt and an apple. There are nights when I’m dead tired and frozen pizza sounds great. (I’ve learned to sprinkle a bit more cheese on top along w/ some herbs de provence and roquette) And sometimes when I’m on the road, a Big Mac and fries allow me to keep on keeping on (and getting the steering wheel pretty greasy at the same time).

BUT, there are times when I DO have the time and NEED to enjoy life and my friends with long and slow French meal with lots of courses of creatively prepared, delicious food. The kind that start around 8pm and where dessert is served around midnight. The kind where you take one bite and drop your knife and fork and let out an “O! That is SO good!”

I think if you are a somewhat normal humanoid, your mouth could be starting to salivate or your stomach starting to rumble after your brain read that last paragraph. We all long to eat like that occasionally. People spend a LOT of money to eat like that. People study and read and practice and apprentice a LONG time to be able to prepare food like that. Since moving to France over 2 years ago, I’ve had to learn a few things about dining at a higher level than what I grew up with. I’ve learned to appreciate it and now enjoy it every chance I get.

So in the spiritual part of our lives, I think it is the same. We are all busy. We throw out a prayer every now and then and keep going. Some of us take it more seriously and actually pray for our friends and family regularly and keep an on going list of things we would like God to do for us (I call this the Big Mac, fries and a Coke of prayer). But if you had the time and the desire, would you even know how to enjoy a more extended, more creative, more fulfilling, more enjoyable time with the Creator, like a great French meal? From my conversations on this topic with a LOT of people over the past few decades…..many of the spiritual people I know, struggle with how to do this. I’ve been struggling with it myself for the past few decades and I learned some things through it.  I would like to begin to open up and share on this blog some of my “recipes” and “dinner planning” thoughts about how to move beyond spiritual fast food toward something more fulfilling, more, enjoyable, more nourishing.