Taste and See

I have identified myself as a foodie for some time, finding great joy and comfort in mashed potatoes and baked chicken. I believe with all my heart in the power of a latte and a well-timed cookie. So when Ben and I went on a diet last month,  it was tough. Really tough. But so good, at the same time. We knocked out everything but meat, vegetables, nuts, and some dairy. Oh, and rice cakes. LOTS OF RICE CAKES. I  missed my coffee. But I hadn’t felt that connected to my food in years. I hadn’t really tasted food in so long. When’s the last time you really tasted your food? That’s what I thought. I could weep when I bite into a really ripe peach, the juice dotting my chin in a sort of explosive food confetti. I heave sighs of relief when I get that first sip of either crappy work coffee or a perfectly steamed, perfectly brewed latte. I offer up a true prayer, maybe some of the truest prayers I’ve ever prayed, when I enjoy dinner with my husband in our deep companionship or a slap-stick dinner with true friends. Food opens us up--it satisfies our first needs. Eat and be filled, so you can be filled with the goodness of the Lord. Drink and be quenched so you can be filled with the goodness of whatever company you find yourself in, whether you’re alone or with your best friend or your favorite family member. If your food is crappy, your conversation will probably suffer. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds right. Well, I suppose you could get by for a while, but over time, your body will start to complain and you won’t be able to enjoy much of anything.

It’s unnatural to not care about food. I think we all do, really, deep down. Why else are there so many  sad and frustrated people who struggle with weight and self-image? We have lost our true relationship with food. We are disconnected. So we grab whatever’s there, whatever’s available, whatever we don’t have to cook ourselves. Chesterton described the polygamist as not actually enjoying sex too much; rather he has lost his appreciation for sex by having many lovers, forgetting how it was meant to be enjoyed. This is true of food, too. And wouldn't you know that of course, I found a renewed appreciation of food in a crazy diet by fasting from what I thought I wanted.

Oh yes! You bet I sat on the couch and cried. I laid in bed and cried, thinking of giving up my bread, my peanut butter, my pasta, my coffee, my cookies, my chocolate, the things that I used for comfort during the day, and my whole life, really. Any day is filled with any number of vexations, of griefs, of confusions. Food is such a constant. I know exactly how that chocolate in my desk drawer will taste, even though I have no idea what’s waiting for me in the next hour. I know exactly how much comfort exists in a big bowl of pasta and alfredo sauce after a long day…like snuggling deep into a pile of blankets fresh from the dryer. Here is the kicker…that is GOOD. In itself, food is meant as a huge present from our Creator. Proverbs advises to give wine to those in bitter distress. Our Lord knows we are but dust. He knows we need good food when we wake up, in the middle of our work day, after a long day of working. Maybe He even knows we need a nice cup of hot chocolate before bed sometimes. He is a good God, a good Father. He knows what we need before we need it, after all.

Sadly, even our relationship with food, one that God meant to be good and full of satisfaction, I believe, was tainted by the Fall. The final rip from relationship from God on that fateful day was one of food, wasn’t it? When Eve opened her mouth and sank her teeth into what was forbidden; when Adam tasted what was not meant for him, all was lost. They wanted the fruit because they were told not to have it, because it was the means to an end, to power, to knowledge, not because they wanted it for pleasure, for enjoying it in the moment, like how presents from God are meant to be received. This is probably why diets usually don’t work. Our motivations matter to God, and to ourselves. God had not meant them to taste this fruit because it was not good for them. He wasn’t being a big meanie. He was only thinking of their good. Just like what I tell my body when it wants not just a cookie, but seventeen.

I can only imagine what that fruit tasted like. Did it taste good going down, like how half a pan of brownies tastes, or a half-pound cheeseburger? Or did that first bite confirm everything God had told them about it? Did it leave a small round lump in the pit of their stomach, or just too full like after Thanksgiving with all the fixings? Did they lean against the tree it came from and puke their guts out in sorrow, like a repentant bulimic? Did they feel dirty and greasy all over, like they’d rubbed a bacon maple bar all over their faces? And the final terrible question I want to ask, but maybe not want to know the answer to, is…did they care? Did they sit in the satisfied stuffed stupor of the glutton with smeared egg on their faces, or were they  in mourning right away for what they had done to their bodies, to their minds?  Did Adam and Eve feel all their relationships, with God and themselves and their bodies, break right away? Or were they so dead and full inside they couldn’t feel at all? And what did God think when He saw them partake and eat? Did He feel a lightening bolt of sorrow in His chest, a plunging sorrow in His belly? Did He feel it before He saw it? He must have felt the disconnection right away, the end of what had been so precious, that communion as they walked in the cool of the day together.

But even in food, there is redemption, isn’t there? Even in that terrible ironic Fall, mirroring our season of autumn, with the promise of summer dying and only a hard winter to come, God Himself made clothes for them. He set them to work, to make their own food, to work the land with their own hands. I know that most people see that as a punishment, and I suppose it was in part, and maybe the satisfaction I feel in preparing a meal after a long day is part of the Fall lingering to this day, but I don’t really think so. I think God provided this small joy in the middle of great sorrow. To work something good out of something so evil. We can still work with our hands and make something good, something akin to that old communion our ancestors had in the Garden with our God, something like walking about in the cool of the day. Perhaps they walked with cold glasses of lemonade or a corndog dipped in mustard. People talk about real things over food, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this grand tradition started in the Garden in the beginning.

In the meantime, we still have broken relationships with food, don’t we? Our bodies rebel, weakened by the Fall and by heredity and by environment, and any other number of reasons. Too many spices give us heartburn and dairy gives us flem and too many treats at Christmas give us a head-cold in January. Worse, we crave what is bad for us, either the wrong foods altogether or our-of-control portion size. Especially in this Western world,  I think we must temper our attitudes and our appetites with thanks. Whatever you do, said Paul to the Colossians, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks. Giving thanks for our food and our drink, our daily communion with our Father, will mend both our hearts and bodies. Only then can we truly taste our food, our daily gift of manna from God. Only then will we will taste and see that the Lord is good, whatever we choose to eat. Paul also said not to let anyone judge you for what you eat or drink, for the substance belongs to Christ. Realizing, for the first time in my life, that Christ cares about what I eat, makes every meal communion, every bite of bread sacred, every sip of water holy.