Of Bears and Penguins

Keeping the Feast

I’m thinking about what it means to keep the feast.

It’s a funny little line in the liturgy.

Let us proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Let’s just chase a small rabbit for one moment: 23 words that contain an entire world history – faith, unseen and hoped for, thus a mystery, the known elements of that faith and hope, and our response to it. How many volumes have been written? And yet there it is in 23 words. Beyond that, the beautiful poetry of verb tenses – surely this must have appealed to those church fathers steeped in Latin, it takes me back to the drilling of conjugation, amo, amas, amamus. Has, is, will – past, present, future. Keep – now, in response.

I’ve been going to a church here in St. Louis, I don’t know why typing that sentence feels oddly confessional. Maybe it’s because the church has several campuses, and TV monitors (!) that put the songs up interspersed with Bible verses, maybe it’s the well edited mini-doc they show once a week telling the story of how someone was in crisis, found Jesus, and now they’re plugged in, maybe it’s the electric guitar and the drums and the pounding bass. Maybe because it’s a non-denominational, non-liturgical congregation – so to sum up, everything I’ve complained about in the modern church for years.

In fact, I almost left today, in the middle of one of the songs that sounded a little to reminiscent of a power-ballad worthy of senior prom, and after five people didn’t return a good morning as I stepped aside to let them into the row.

I grabbed a cup of coffee – definite perk to this church, and sat down in the very back row. I mean, it was church, and I like the way the pastor preaches – well, at least the three sermons I’ve heard.

This is largely because the pastor reminds me of my high-school Bible Teacher, also the football and wrestling coach, willing to, in his diction: “bring the smackdown on the field, the mat or the classroom.”

And the grape juice they serve at communion. It’s been 7 years since I went to a church that didn’t serve wine for communion.

So the combo of a reminiscent Coach A., and Welch’s standing in for the cup of salvation, it’s like ex-Southern-Baptist soul comfort food.

I told my Mom that I was perfectly fine with poached eggs for Thanksgiving dinner, that it was really all the same to me.

Truly it probably will be. Food does anything except thrill me now and for the past four months. It feels funny in my mouth, it doesn’t appeal to my taste, it seems awfully pushy. I haven’t cooked in about four months, except for cheddar cheese risotto once. I’ve been eating lots of fruits and veggies, in fact almost entirely vegetarian, which is uncharacteristic. I mean, I enjoy(ed) food, enjoy(ed) cooking, thoroughly enjoy(ed) meat, but my general feeling towards it currently is meh.

So the idea of an 8 pound bird, with accoutrements out the wazzu, well if anything, it kind of gives me a feeling of dread; it’s intimidating.

Food’s all wrapped up in love for me, cooking grounds me in a way, it connects me to my mother and grandmothers, it gives me a place to stand still in the middle of a this crazy-tilt-a-whirl world. Cooking for people is sacred, and also one of the ways I give love to the people I care for, and apparently has been so for a long time.

John Doe (yes, that really is his nickname), my radical-feminist-agitating friend, called just the other day, out of the blue to say, “Do you remember that one time you made your grandma’s spaghetti – I still dream about it.” Mind you that was at least 5 years ago.

But four months ago my small world went one whirl too many, and I’m still catching my breath. Cooking’s still all wrapped up with love for me, and well…I’m not going to talk about that here.

So the calendar pages are falling away every passing day, and here it is November, the festival of the Turkey, the gratitude and the kick-off of egg-nog season; I’ve never looked forward to a Thanksgiving less.

Still I’m betting it’s going to be better than the year my Dad almost died after a disastrous surgery. We ate Thanksgiving at the dining room table while Dad was plugged into the home-medical equipment – he was feeling poorly, but he was game. I’m sure he even carved the turkey.

After I remembered that Thanksgiving, I emailed my mom again – I told her we’d do it this year, the roast-beast, the relish, the potatoes, the pies. If Dad could do Thanksgiving while plugged into a wall, then I can probably do thanksgiving even as I still sorrow.

I am keeping the feast, at least a really tiny portion of it, and a half of a turkey sandwich.

The other day, I read: “Be kinder than necessary, everyone is fighting a battle.” I recognize sorrow more easily now in others, because I too experience(d) its depths. It has made me more compassionate, and kinder. It’s all so fragile what we have here, there’s too little time to stomp about with 10-league boots on.

Everyone’s fighting something – grief, or stress, or worry, mistakes, regrets – there’s such a list of human woe.

I didn’t leave church today, and I heard a message about heresy. I abstained from the Lord’s Supper, but I sat quietly and peacefully, just at rest.

During the sermon, I felt really noticeably hungry, or rather, I noticed that I desired food specifically a Chipotle burrito. This once familiar feeling of wanting food was especially surprising and unexpected, and so after church, I went in peace to the restaurant.

They didn’t open till 11; I had 10 minutes to kill. I spoke with an older couple who needed directions; I looked in shop-windows.

When I walked into the restaurant, the staff was still sitting around a table eating and jawing. I smiled and said “Good Morning.” A gentleman got up to take my order. We made pleasant conversation.

I got to the register to check out and the lady said, “It’s free.”

I smiled and said, “Thank you.”

I don’t really know if the Lord is involved in details as small as me feeling hungry for a burrito and then getting a free one, but I had just left His house. I do have faith and hope, that the dear Christ does enter into this messy-tilt-a-whirl-world to bear upon Himself that which we cannot. And I think He very kindly gave me lunch in a way too obvious for me to miss.

The gift of that burrito made me smile and laugh. I grinned all the way back to my car, three young men on their way to a coffee shop even commented on how happy I looked, “she’s all smiles,” they said. I told them to have a great day.

So I went home. I bowed my head; said thank you. Kept the feast.

So I proclaim the mystery I can’t understand, but in which I hope:

That Christ has come.

Christ is risen, and is near.

Christ will come again.

Therefore, though I yet sorrow, though I do not understand, though I have questions that at the moment have no answers, still will I in His grace and borrowed strength, keep the feast He sets before me.