Food and Faith

I have been eating all my life.  Nothing new about that statement.  It is a common denominator for all of us.  Some of my eating has been what my oldest grandson would call a feast when our family gathered for Thanksgiving Day.  Most of it though has been more mundane than Thanksgiving as it spoke of a table filled with the normal necessary fare of everyday eating.  And, of course, there has also been a lot of fast food consumed while going from one place to another.  To be truthful is to declare such is not so much eating as it is consuming.

 

What I never really knew until a recent book was opened was a theology of eating a Duke School of Divinity professor named Norman Wirzba wrote a three hundred page book entitled "Food and Faith" which bears the subtitle, "A Theology of Eating."  All these years of eating and now I am finding out the theology behind it!  A primary statement which runs through the book as a theme reads, "Food is God's love made nutritious and delicious, given for the good of each other."  As he runs with this theme through those three hundred pages, it has introduced me to a lot of new theological thoughts, sent me to the dictionary more than just a few times, and caused me to think more about the eating I do every day.

 

As one who grew up at a table where there was always a table blessing, I understood that God was the source of all that was set before me.  What I missed was the way my attitude toward eating spoke about the way I viewed the creation around me.  Wirzba offers the idea that food is seen more as a commodity than a blessing of a kind and gracious heavenly Father.  Being on the farm during these retirement years has brought me to a new awareness of the power within the dirt, but as I begin to do my second read of "Food and Faith" I know there is still much to learn.