The Graze V.143: Sacred Eating

Dear Friends:

This morning I brought out a bucket of food scraps for the chickens. These were scraps left over from dinner last night. There were kale stems and peelings from the carrots. There were a few slivered almonds, some currants and a small piece of salmon. This treat was received enthusiastically by the chickens and guinea hen who were taking in some sun in front of the Chapel.

Our Mission Farm chickens represent a pathway toward participation in a healing ecosystem: they help to revitalize our soil; build our compost pile; produce delicious eggs and they bring joy to life at Mission Farm. They also remind me every day of the sacredness of eating. They demonstrate the reciprocity that we share with the natural world. This relationship is an invitation to explore the theological, ecological and spiritual significance of eating. It is also a challenge to our Eucharistic celebration.

What does it mean to share bread and wine in a community of faith? How does our sacramental practice and our relationship with food honor and acknowledge our interdependence with one another? How does our understanding of eating heal broken relationships between one another, the Earth and the One whose life pulses through all creation?

Eating is an act of recognition that we are connected to a graced universe of soil, sunlight and seed. We are led toward the true deep meaning of our lives when we consider how our food connects us to one another and to the web of creatures too numerous to count.

This morning, I returned from the chicken coop with a handful of fresh eggs. This experience of sharing food with the chickens is at once cosmic and microscopic. It reminds us that we were made for relationship.

May the warmth of the sun, the movement of the planets and the microbes in the soil remind you of your kinship with the patterns of the Earth and the Source of all being.

Lisa+