In The Ordinary, Where Feasts are Hidden and Revealed

The day began with a run along the country road where the sounds of the water running down the ditches played a tune.  It became loud and vibrant where the water was full and rapid flowing, then changed tempo to a slower rhythm where the water was less, it moved a bit slower and took on a quieter tone.   My gaze was down the road but I heard the water flowing beside me play its own tune.   It was a feast of sounds, ordinary sounds that come from Creation.  They played their melody as I ran along this ordinary country road in the place I call home and it sang life to me.  It was a feast for my senses as I ran, as I listened, as I inhaled the sounds and smells of today.

Coffee midday connecting with a friend I hadn’t had a face to face chat with for some time, in a café that we both love some downtime was the next feast.   A big bowl of delicious steaming espresso coffee and a cup of chicken coconut curry soup with a large slice of fresh made warm ciabatta bread!   Soup and bread which are comfort food in the winter months brought me satisfaction.   The conversation with my friend brought me life – wide awake, be alert kind of life!

Banana squash that had grown in our garden this summer didn’t produce an abundant crop but there was one left from the harvest last fall.   I cooked it up and made a squash curry soup with apples.  It will be a quick and ready supper that I can take from the freezer in the future.  A feast, a simple feast with the abundance of our small garden that gives us beautiful produce, will give us a bowl of hot comforting soup this winter.

I brought the platter of food to the table tonight, and carrying it I felt deliciously alive!   It was spread upon a beautiful pottery platter that David has had for many years. Sautéed potatoes, which are a favourite of my beloved’s, lay beside free range chicken thighs that were seared in a little sesame oil and then cooked a little longer  bathed in kejup manis (an Indonesian soy sauce that also contains some star anise and is sweeter and thicker than normal soy sauce).  Some fresh green beans, blanched and then sautéed in a little butter were the ‘fresh’ ingredient for our meal.   We don’t always have wine during the week but a glass of Nk’Mip Tallon red wine added an aditional touch to this ‘ordinary’ meal, a feast of ordinary things that nourished us.

Today, looking back looks like a tender sweet banquet.  There were the sounds of nature and life that came with the morning run.   A simple lunch with a dear friend was another feast – the taste of communion, bread, soup and sweet conversation in a Light filled sacred space.  It was an ordinary evening meal that held the sacred ingredients of love, of Holiness, of wonder and communion, and the presence of the Beloved.   Home is this place where I am fully free to be myself, awake and alive to the reality that Love has given me precious gifts that I could not have imagined.

Yes, today was about feasting, finding the abundance, within the ordinary of every day life.   Tonight the question I sit with is what if finding and creating spaces for feasting with others is my life work?

Defining a Feast

Defining a “Feast”

When the word ‘feast’ is used is seems to most often be connected to a sumptuous amount of food, a large gathering of people and a meal that is eaten over a fairly long period of time.   It is most definitely connected to food and is often connected to too much food, almost gluttonous in content.  That seems to put a negative spin on it.   So what is a feast?

The Free Dictionary describes it as: east, commemorative banquet symbolizing communal unity. Generally associated with primitive rituals and later with religious practices, feasts may also commemorate such events as births, marriages, harvests, and deaths. The principal Christian feasts of the Western Church are Easter , Pentecost , Epiphany , and Christmas . The greater number of feasts (excluding Sunday, the weekly feast) fall on the same day of the month each year (e.g., Christmas) and constitute the temporal cycle. Some of the more important liturgical observances are movable (e.g., Easter) and are part of the sanctoral system. Among the Jews the chief feasts are Rosh ha-Shanah , the Feast of Tabernacles , Purim , Passover , Hanukkah , and Shavuot . In the Muslim world the Islamic feasts vary according to country and locale, although there are several feast days of universal importance. The most widely celebrated are the little and great feasts following the fast of Ramadan and the feast commemorating the birth of Muhammad. In Buddhist countries festive celebrations are usually associated with the birthday of Buddha, his attainment of Nirvana, or enlightenment, and his death. In India there are many national and regional Hindu feasts. One of the most important is the feast of Holi. See also vigil  and fasting.

According to my old Webster’s dictionary a Feast was:

1. a religious festival
2. A rich and elaborate meal
3. to delight  ie: to feast one’s eyes on a sight

In the Christian tradition the Eucharist is considered a feast.  The “sacrament’ is derived from the words that mean “sacred feast’ and ‘mystery’.

Nicola Fletcher writes “There is no simple way to define a feast because so much is due to the state of mind of the participants  (pg 3 Charlemagne’s Tablecloth).  She writes that “Holding a feast to enhance power or social standing has not disappeared, even though nowadays many are held ostensibly for charity (pg 4).    Feasts became a way of including those in the circle by inviting them and excluding those who did not fit by withholding an invite or participation in a feast.   In the early Persian culture their feasts were legendary and their ‘delight in indulgence impressed and seduced those who experienced it’ (pg 9 Charlemagne’s Tablecloth).

In the book Feasting with God: Adventures in Table Spirituality, author Holly Whitcomb writes that feasts were sensuous banquets filled with joy, a place where tears were wiped away.  They were a reminder of the sacredness of eating and celebrating, a feast to remind us that even though death happens, we are meant to be alive and to celebrate that life.  Whitcomb writes that feasts were places of joy and inclusiveness and could be a place of changing the world when one had a vision of “heaven on earth”.

From these various explanations ‘feasting’ was also an event where your senses were involved and clearly today a feast is still an event where your senses are enticed to participate.   In the early feasts there were the smells of the food that tantalized you, your palate tasted all the various flavours infused with rich exotic spices.  Your eyes took in the abundance of colour that was not only the food, but the rich and lavish fabrics of the garments people wore.  Entertainment was a part of early feasting, therefore inviting you to hear this part of the feast.  The conversations too would have added to the cacophony of sounds.  It could well have been sensory overload!

Armed with all of this information I sat down to write out what feasting means to me, today, in my culture, in my community, and with the history around it in my own life.

1. A feast involves good food.  It may be a full meal, or an assortment of small tasting plates, or it may even be a beverage and some delicious homemade treats/snacks.  It involves your senses.
2. Food is prepared and served that will nourish our bodies, our souls and our senses.   When our senses become involved we are invited more fully into a state of being ‘awake’ to all life around us. 
3. Company of friends, family and strangers together, in conversation that elicits laughter, honesty, authenticity, tears, wisdom, and life giving hope.  These are the intangible ingredients to a feast.
4. A setting that fosters equality and honour for all who gather.
5. A feast is marked by the reality that there is enough for everyone.  It is about abundance and sufficiency and not about excess and gluttony.  This could perhaps be an ingredient in also providing the sacred space for conversations where differences of philosophy and point of view can safely be shared and honoured. 
6. We all have something precious to bring to the table.  It will season the gathering in a unique way.
7. The feast always holds the reality that the celebration and the lament will always be with us. One does not exclude the other. These two, in my mind, are never separate.
8. It is becoming more clear to me that each feast holds a definite social justice ingredient.

There are most certainly more ingredients to any feast.   These are the ones that come to mind at present but as I explore this whole concept of feasting, and as I experience it more in the time ahead, I long to understand it more fully.  There is a longing within me to understand how the feast becomes a more inclusive and rich moment.  I yearn to find the Holy One in each sacred opportunity of feasting, and to experience a deeper sense of communion with God, and with each person at the feast.

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A Word for 2014 - Feasting

A Word for 2014 - FEASTING

The word that has found me, and now will take me on a new journey through this New Year, is the word “Feasting”.    Does this take any of you by surprise?   Actually it has taken me a bit by surprise!   The words over the last few years have been ones that suggested I be very intentional in how I hold them, act upon them, and let my heart be open to them and they were new ideas.   Feasting seems natural in one way, knowing how hospitality is my life theme, and bringing people together at the table is how I express that.  Yet feasting seems too connected to the materialism and gluttony of our culture today, in deep contrast to my desire to live more simply, to be more proactive in being careful with food sources, making the meal table a place of equality for everyone, and moving away from the thinking of excess.  Which then means that there is a new way of looking at ‘feasting’ for me in this next year.  It also suggests that my adventure will be putting those new ways into action here in my community and sharing them here on Eat, Savour, Linger, Live.  That will surely be a huge part of the adventure of 2014!   

There are a couple of books that I start this search with and I am sure more will be piled up on my desk as the year progresses.  

Feasting With God:  Adventures in Table Spirituality by Holly Whitcomb.   My husband gave me this book the second time I met him.  It was one he had and thought it might be one I could use!  One of the reasons I knew this man ‘saw’ me at the beginning of our relationship.

Charlemagne’s Tablecloth:  A Piquant History of Feasting by Nichola Fletcher.   A fabulous gift from my friend Angi in 2005 when I visited her.

Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around The Table, With Recipes by Shauna Niequist.   A Christmas gift from my husband this year.

I will share the following two pieces that speak to Feasting and hold wisdom that I want to incorporate in my way of seeing this subject.  I have shared them before and hope that as you read them for the first time, or a repeated time, that they will speak to you too.

“The feast is an opportunity for community.  We are inviting those around our table to share everything that is in front of them with one another.  A feast invites a celebration of abundance over scarcity, of community over individualism, of distribution over hoarding.  A feast invites us to celebrate that our God-given gifts are meant to be shared.”  (I cannot remember where I found this quote but I love it)

Feasting and Fasting by Jim Burklo, found on progressivechristianity.org

“So let us feast on simple pleasure, and fast from all that gets our bodies and souls out of balance.

Let us feast on kindness and fast from sarcasm.

Let us feast on compassion, and fast from holding grudges.

Let us feast on patience, and fast from anxiety.

Let us feast on peace, and fast from stirring up needless conflict.

Let us feast on acceptance and fast from judgement.

Let us feast on joy and fast from jealousy.

Let us feast on faith, and fast from fear.

Let us feast on creativity, and fast from all that deadens our souls.

Let us feast on social justice, and fast from negligence of the most vulnerable.

Let us feast on service to others, and fast from selfishness.

Let us feast on delight and fast from despair.

Let us feast on bread and wine in spiritual communion, and fast from all that keeps us from communing deeply with one another so that our lives might be sufficient, fulfilled, complete, whole, enough.

Amen