Food

FRI., OCT. 2, 1981, 6:06 AM
FARM, STUDY

Once you break the pattern of rising early and truly including this meditation as the normal first hour of your day you have difficulty reestablishing this priority. I awoke you in plenty of time, but… at least you are here, o son. Hear as I teach you of food, that which is both sacred and secular, spiritual and mundane.

Food is, both symbolically and actually, one of the major essentials of life. Actually, each person needs relatively little, but most are uncomfortable with only that which is necessary… and they desire more. It is easy, then, for food to become inflated in value and for perspectives on its importance to be distorted.

At the same time when food is the gift to others, a symbol of friendship, it is proper to spend time in planning, preparing, and serving. It still need not be fancy and excessive in amount. A simple meal of soup and bread can be a fine gift… better than a many course meal, if this is done for show and vanity.

Food also can have a truly spiritual quality. Food that is blessed and prayed over as it is grown, prepared, and served takes on a spiritual quality that gives it special benefits… and so on to the eater thereof. Nutritional value is too complex a matter for this to be proved scientifically, but I attest that it is true… so why not establish this as a practice? You do it with your beer and your rabbits… that is a good start. Develop it further… with these, and with other foods for which you are responsible. It takes little time. It does take attention.

Food is a most obvious means to an end. You eat in order that you might do. One of the great inequalities in the world is that some people have food that is insufficient to enable them to do what they must do to sustain life, while others do so much less than the food they have could empower them to do. Because food can be so obviously valuable there is a tendency for one to take more than he needs. Yet out of this selfish tendency can come a spiritual good… the willingness to share with others something of true value.

In your society at this time the majority have lost or never known this true value of food, for it is always so plentiful. Markets abound with great varieties, which can become a matter of wonder and awe, but more frequently simply dulls appreciation of the bounteous harvest available.

As the times of economic difficulty come there can be more appreciation of that food which is available, but, again, though this is the desired response it is not the only one possible. Some apparent need can bring appreciation and thanksgiving, but it also can bring self-centeredness and self-pity… an inordinate focus on “poor me”. This, of course, is the most obvious evidence of an undeveloped spirit… of spiritual sickness.

To grow food for your own use and as a means for some others is a most worthy use of life… and, as I said, a continuous spiritual opportunity. Your garden had some merit this year, but it is still far from what it could be if you saw it more in spiritual terms. If you will consider and develop this perspective you shall be amazed at what that garden will produce.

Let not what is still in it now be further wasted. See all that you do to prepare it for another year’s crop as loving, spiritual care. That is just another dimension of the spirit that can be both perceived and invested.

Life requires food. Life can be of varying quality… and so can food. The inherent nutritional value can be enhanced or reduced by the quality of spirit that is invested in it… in the land, the planting, the maintaining, the harvesting, the preparing… and the eating.

I offer you a challenge. And hence you may offer it to others. That is an important part of this relationship We have. I give, in order that you might, also. Consider this at the noon meal today.

Amen
7:09 AM