A Place at the Table, days 14 & 15

I have become a big fan of Margaret Feinberg.  I came to "meet" her through her connection with Ecclesia Houston, my favorite church in the world that I have never worked at.  Maybe my favorite church in the world that I have ever been to.  Anyway, I have been following her on Twitter for a couple of weeks now, and she has become one of my favorites to quote and retweet.  I hope someday soon to read one or more of her books (The Organic God, The Sacred Echo, Scouting the Divine, etc.), but for now her tweets are about all that I can handle.

She comes across twitter with what she calls a "Morning Chutzpah" where she shares some wisdom from Hebrew sources (I assume from the name.  The chutzpah part, at least.)  It was one of these quotes -- "The past for wisdom, the present for action, but for joy the future." by Disraeli -- that brought structure and clarity to my sermon last week.  If you've ever had a lot to say but no idea how to structure it, you understand how wonderful a guiding thought can be!

I was reminded of Margaret this afternoon.  Her morning chutzpah from two days ago was a proverb -- "Man proposes, and God laughs."  Learned that lesson again today.  For about 4 years, we have talked about going to Angel Fire, NM, so that my girls could learn how to ski from one of my favorite people in the world, Pat "Pappy" Harris.  Pappy made that promise to my girls at camp a few years ago, and my daughters refuse to allow Pappy to renege.  So we made plans this Spring Break to head north to New Mexico for some relaxation, skiing, and friends.

Well, Pappy called today (we were leaving tomorrow) and told us that it was a disaster -- sick people, lodging falling through, etc.  So, we are not going to New Mexico to ski over Spring Break.  But, since my wife had all of the girls packed for a colder climate, we will head north to see family tomorrow.  I think the girls will be all right with that.  They'd better be.

As I launch out in a new endeavor ministerially, I can't help but remember this quote.  "Man proposes, and God laughs."  It reminds me to never take my plans too seriously.  It reminds me that "I don't know" is often the right answer.  And it reminds me that I should probably spend a whole lot more time praying than I do proposing.  Unless I want to keep God laughing.  Which I'll probably end up doing anyway.

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.