“O, taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Psalm 34.8

From the bounty of Dianne’s brother Jeff’s garden, we have received wonderful fresh vegetables in recent weeks. Such delicious home raised produce is reminiscent of Jeff’s and Dianne’s grandfather Shockley. For me it’s also a distant memory of my grandfather McKinnon who, like Papa Shockley, had a large garden out back. On all sides, we had grandmothers who knew what to do with such veggies.

Yes, there have been tomato sandwiches generously Hellman-ed, salted and peppered. We do it now on healthy whole wheat bread, unlike before we knew white bread is not our friend.

Of late, however, the starring role has been Dianne’s sautéed okra with onions, red and green tomatoes that’s so savory good. Supporting actors have been green beans, squash, even the cucumbers. But it’s mainly the okra medley on a throne of basmati rice; chicken tender or two on top, optional.

You may have heard the term ‘book providence’. That refers to how on occasion, unplanned for, unexpected: just the right book for our lives shows up. Across the years, books by Frederick Buechner, Ferrol Sams, John Claypool, Barbara Brown Taylor, William Kent Krueger, and such have done that for me. Do you have nominee books or authors?

Well, what about ‘food providence’? Are there times when the right food shows up? The food and our companions (literally ‘bread sharers’) are so good that our souls and stomachs crisscross, unsure where one begins and the other ends.

They can be, and often are, not only Thanksgiving and Christmas family feasts, but regular daily fare. Like the well prepared summer vegetable suppers we shared last week on our trays, watching/listening to what Lester Holt had to say about the news du jour.

For me the awareness of ‘food providence’ blessings seldom kabongs in the moment. It’s a few days later, like the okra medley meal. Or it can be weeks or years as I recall good food shared with people, some still on earth, and others in that great Communion of Saints, cloud/crowd of witnesses, mentioned in Hebrews 12.1ff.

WASTED YEARS
It’s embarrassing that up until I was 12 or so, by a stretch, there might have been a dozen foods I liked.

NO okra fried or otherwise or veggies unless you consider French fries or mashed potatoes. Banana sandwiches but NO PBJ. A few green beans maybe; turnip greens and other green stuff, forget it. Fried chicken legs, yes; no other poultry need apply. Plain cake; no icing. Hamburgers; no hot dogs. Well, enough. You get the sad point.

Then somehow, with adolescence came the awakening of my taste buds. It was a while before liking stewed okra (swallows too fast) kicked in but the wow of fried okra suddenly appeared. Both grandmothers made it crispy great but differently. Looking back, I realize my grandmother McKinnon diced green tomatoes in her fried okra.

With maturity I came to delight in turnip greens and squash any way you can configure it. Outside of liver and hominy, you’d have to work hard to find something I don’t like. Having repented from those wasted years, by gustatorial grace, I have more than caught up.

The okra trail is representative of the intertwining of body and soul, food and people I love.

JESUS’ TABLE
Only in a small segment of the world in recent times has food been so plentiful that some of us have the luxury of needing to diet and count calories. Around the world and through time, the enduring quest has been having enough food to eat. Thus, one way heaven was pictured was as God’s table where everyone had a place and all had enough to eat. (Luke 13.29)

In Jesus’ time, only intimate equals ate together. People from different social-economic-racial-religious backgrounds just did not eat with one another. You recall that Jesus was notorious for pretty much being willing to eat with anyone. All sorts of questionable people: tax-collectors, prostitutes, poor, foreigners, and generally all the ‘not our kind of people.’

What’s more, Jesus’ table was a sort of acted out parable. ‘As you are welcome at my table, you are welcome at God’s table.’ This drove the super religious types a bit crazy. For them religion and food were used more as an exclusionary thing. For Jesus, faith and food were about including and gathering people together in the nourishing, forgiving love of God.

So whether at the Communion Table in worship or the daily table with friends and family, food shared in love is sacramental. The holy and the ordinary touch, bodies and souls crisscross, and you really can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.

My hunch is you know what I mean and have experienced this.

What’s on the table and who’s around the table for your food providence times? The bread and okra of life for you?