Saying Grace: a beginning point

In our family, every meal begins in the same manner. As we gather at the table, hands are joined and grace is said. The words are always the same-- a prayer that was taught to my mother when she was a child and that she taught her children.

“For food, for health, for loving care,
For friends and blessings everywhere,
Dear [God]*, we thank you. Amen.”

Saying Grace is a beginning point for inviting God’s presence in our eating. We say “thank you” for the food which we are about to consume. For many of us, saying a prayer at the beginning of a meal may be the only time that our faith “mindfully” intersects with our eating. Beyond those grace-saying moments, do we think about how our faith connects to the actual food that we put in our mouths?

The answers are as individual and multi-layered as each person who wrestles with questions of faith. How do our religious beliefs influence how that food comes to be on our plates? The answers involve issues of how we eat, what we eat, and with whom we eat.

More and more I am convinced that there are fundamental issues of faith involved in how food comes to our table, but for many us, convenience and price trump values. For example, it is cheap and easy to run through the drive-thru and pick up a burger. Yet, how many of us have thought about what that choice might mean for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. I heard someone suggest recently that the meat in such a burger might have come from animals raised in a foreign country where persons are dying from hunger-related causes because all the prime farmland is used for meat which is then exported. I haven‘t verified whether this is a “real“ problem or not, but the issue for me is that I don’t whether or not this is a true story.

And so, as one of my New Year‘s Resolutions I plan to spend more time exploring the layers of this question in my own life: How does my faith intersect with my eating? I welcome your thoughts and comments.


**My mother taught us to say “Father,” but in the interest of non-sexist language, I have taught my own daughter to use the word “God.”

the best meal in a long time

A few weeks ago, Ron and I had dinner at Urban Standard. I follow them on twitter and I had gotten a "tweet" earlier in the day stating that they would be serving dinner. We decided to check it out. Having only been to Urban Standard early in the morning and coffee and breakfast, I wasn't sure what to expect for dinner; Ron had never been there.

Looking at the menu, I immediately knew that the meal would be different than anything I'd had in a while. There were only four choices for dinner: pork shoulder, potato dumplings, mahi, or venison.

After a starter of butternut squash soup, I ordered the potato dumplings, with root veggies and kale. When that first bite of kale hit my taste buds, I realized that I hadn't had REAL food in a long time! Kale is most certainly NOT my favorite vegetable! I'm not a big fan of leafy greens and eat them more because they are healthy than because I actually like them! But, I really, really LIKED how that kale tasted--along with everything else that I put in my mouth. If it wouldn't have been highly impolite, I might have even tried to lick the plate!

After the meal, we had the pleasure to speak with the owner. He told us that Urban Standard gets some of there produce from Jones Valley Urban Farm. Coincidentally I had visited JVUF during the Food Summit recently where I saw rows and rows of kale growing. I wouldn't be surprised if I had seen the very kale that I ate that night!

Help Society of St. Andrew get $250,000 from Pepsi!

Society of St. Andrew (SoSA) is in the running for a grant of $250,000 from the Pepsi Refresh everything project!!

YOU can help us win by going to their website and voting!!

www.refresheverything.com/endhungerusa


This Money will provide MILLIONS of servings of food to those who are hungry! Our organization can provide a serving a food for about $.02 !!! so this is a HUGE thing for us!

I know it is a pain because you have to register and then log in every day.. but it's their way of collecting demographics and "insuring" that it is fair! not computer bots voting!

So.... PLEASE help us to get this money!!

you can vote every day for the month of September--with every email address that you have! (you just have to register each email addresss!)

if you need a daily reminder to vote, you can sign up for that at the society of St. Andrew website (right under the pepsi widget on the homepage) just enter your email address and you will get a daily reminder from us to go and vote!! www.endhunger.org

thanks!!

the light going out?

Today at church, I sat in the balcony.. Jess and I were the only ones up there along with the "sound guy." It is a different experience from up there.. but my favorite moment of the service today was watching one of the acolytes carry out the "Light of Christ."

The little girl had lit her taper and was carrying it out.. but in typical child-scientific experimentation style... she was moving down the aisle quickly and watching the flame.. just as it was about to go out, she would slow down so that it could "relight" itself.

As I watched her do this, it dawned on me that this is often how the light of Christ is in our own lives.... We move so quickly that that flame is sometimes hard to see and/or feel.. we don't wait and watch for Christ working in our life. And then, we slow down and actually watch and wait and the flame is rekindled--not because we have relit it, but we have welcomed the Spirit to work in our lives again...

back to the blog?

Thinking that I have been away from this too long.. need to get back in the habit of blogging again.. I thought I had just taken last summer off.. now I'm realizing that I took the whole winter off! it's spring already!!

So... hoping that I will get back into the habit soon... we'll see.. facebook still seems to soak up my time so often....