First Feast Day

Probably the only reason that this Lenten fast works for me is because of the weekly feast day.  I didn't realize until three years ago that, even though a typical Lent observance is 40 days, the actual time period from Ash Wednesday to Easter is 46 days.  Some Christian traditions use those extra days (typically Sundays) as feast days in the midst of the fast.  That's the beautiful thing of the A Place at the Table fast.  The Sundays are feast days.

It may be because those first four fast days seemed so long, but this first feast day of Lent was glorious. As was my tradition last year, my feast day began with a Reese's product (this time a PB heart) just after midnight.  While this is probably cheating, it has become one of my favorite Lent traditions.  This time, the Reese's product was washed down with a Woodhouse Cider, meaning that I consumed almost as many calories before going to bed as I typically did in an entire fast day.  Then, I woke up to a fresh cup of coffee (with creamer!!) and waited for our community to come over.  The plan was pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fruit for breakfast, and it was fantastic.  All of the four core families are doing some sort of fast this year, so it was a wondrous Sunday morning for us.  The smell of bacon (and the knowledge that I could eat some!) was a sacred thing!  I never even needed a plate.  I picked up a piece of bacon every time I walked past the serving plate, thus allowing me to have no real idea how much bacon I ate.

Breakfast was so good that, despite the fact that feast day only comes once a week, we skipped lunch.  We were still full from bacon!  It didn't help that church went until around 1:30.  We made plans to meet some of our favorite people for dinner, and that turned out to be a great joy.  The Milners are some mentors of ours and we just never seem to have time in our schedules to hang out.  So an evening at 50th Street Caboose was just perfect.  The grilled chicken sandwich (with bacon and cheese) was perfect with sweet potato fries.  The conversation was fantastic, the Milner kids kept T occupied, and it was nice to have some adult time.

As I was finishing up the day with some laundry and cleaning, I reflected on my first feast day.  And it might have been that bacon was what made it such a great day.  Bacon makes most everything better.  But I think it was the people that made Sunday so great.  Singing songs in my living room with kids screaming out that "God's not dead, He's surely alive, and he's living on the inside, roaring like a lion." Standing around the griddle making pancakes and bacon while laughing.  Hanging out after "church" for an hour to just catch up.  Eating a good meal with some of our favorite people.  It was a reminder of what is truly important.  I can live without most of the food pleasures of life.  But I could never survive without community.  Without friends.  Without people.

That's what life is truly about.

A Place at the Table, Feast Day 1

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in a long time.  The way that this Place at the Table fast is laid out is that on Sundays, we are encouraged to feast with friends -- eat, drink, laugh, enjoy.  So I had been looking forward to Sunday all week.  It had been a long time since I had planned out my meals quite so fully.  I was going to eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Heart (or 2) at midnight, and then get up early for a bowl of cereal loaded down with milk.  Then, on my way to work, I was going to get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte (that girly coffee again).  Lunch would be large quantities of meat, and dinner would be a feast as well.  There was even a thought that I would squeeze one last meal in before going to bed.

Well, reality was less sexy.  The Resse's happened at midnight (glorious!), but when I woke up, the cereal didn't seem so appealing.  So I did the CDL from Starbucks and went to church.  The conversation at church was awesome.  Several of us chatted about what we had been learning about ourselves and our lives during this fast.  After church, a group of us went to Texas Land and Cattle and waited forever to get a table.  But it didn't matter (at least not to most of us) because the conversation was so life-giving.  I ate red meat for the first time in a while, but it was again the community that was being formed around the table that was the most fulfilling.  As a matter of fact, the burger and sweet potato were a little too much.  I felt a little bloated.

So much so that when our community gathered last night for table fellowship and discussion, I wasn't really hungry.  But I bought a chicken sandwich and a coke and was off to our meeting.  It was again the community that was life-giving.  It was our first gathering since we initially launched this lent fast, so we spent some time discussing what we had learned.  I was blown away that, since our first meeting, three of our families had begun sponsoring Compassion kids.  Our little community of 15-20 people had committed to changing 3 lives and bringing kingdom to earth in a tangible, food-on-the-table sort of way.  We then discussed things like contentment and overindulgence and appreciating simple things.  It was again an absolutely life-giving discussion.

We ended our time with some talk about healing and then we took communion together.  The last thing we did was feast on some cake for one of our group's birthday.  Not sure I've ever enjoyed birthday cake quite that much. I went home from that gathering, chicken sandwich in hand (I hadn't eaten it yet; I was still full from lunch!), very happy to have a community of faith that was trying to be intentional about hope and healing and redemption.

So now I begin the first full week of the fast.  I'm sure there will be days of hunger and anger, frustration and exasperation.  But, if week one was any indication, there will also be days of reflection, healing, community and shalom.  Stay tuned.

A Place at the Table, Day 1

Last year, Wendy & I visited Ecclesia in Houston over spring break.  Our friend, Steven, is a pastor there, and we wanted to check out his church.  While we were there, the senior pastor, Chris Seay, was guiding his family through a lenten journey that included eating only what their Compassion child would be able to eat.  I was intrigued, especially when I overheard Chris' teenage daughter telling someone how excited she was that it was Sunday and that they would get to eat something other than beans and rice.

Chris' lenten journey found its way into print in his most recent book A Place at the Table.  It is a short book that lays out the plan and then walks you through the journey.  I won't rehash the book here; if you want to know more, go buy the book.  Then read it.

I challenged our community here in Lubbock to consider joining with me (& Chris & others) in this 40 days of solidarity with the poor.  Several of our families have joined with me, and I thought this would be a good journey to blog about for the next several weeks.

I think what I was most dreading about the diet of our Ethiopian Compassion child was the black coffee.  If you know me, you know that I like my coffee horribly girly.  But coffee was a non-negotiable, so I decided I would have to drink it black.  I'm pretty sure that I didn't like it, but the 6 cups throughout the day kept my mind off of my hunger.

The diet in Ethiopia consists of maize, rice, potatoes, beans, & bread.  Being a picky eater, that leaves me with rice, potatoes, and bread.  Maybe I'll learn to tolerate beans.  I probably ought to anyway, seeing as every other meal in Lubbock includes beans.  I got a text from a friend/fellow-journeyer mid day saying that the purchasing of 5 pound of rice and 5 pounds of beans really made this journey a reality.  I agreed.

I had a lunch appointment, so I sat down at McAlister's with a potato.  No butter.  No sour cream.  Just a potato.  As I was halfway through eating the skin of the potato, my friend asked me if I normally ate the skin of my potatoes.  When I informed him that I did NOT, in fact, usually eat the skin, he asked if I was going to lick the plate after I was done.  Had he not asked me that, I probably would have.

Dinner was a bowl of plain white rice.  I ended up eating less than half of the calories allotted to me by my trusty iPhone app.  As a matter of fact, my app warned me that if I didn't begin consuming more, I could cause some problems to my body.  First world problems, I guess.

Later in the evening I got a text from another fellow-journeyer, comiserating with me about what an unenjoyable journey this was turning out to be.  But then, this friend-who is a hard-core Yankees fan-told me that his family had decided to sponsor a child from the Dominican Republic.  And he told me that the little boy's name was Jeter.  Not gonna lie -- I teared up.  Kingdom was breaking out among us on day one of the journey.

I went to bed on day one of the journey with an empty stomach, but a grateful heart.  I know that it's only the beginning, but I am blessed to be journeying with godly friends.  And I know that feast day is in four days.  Beware, Reese's peanut butter hearts.  Beware.