Three Plates Plus Desert

As most anyone who reads this should know, gluttonous amounts of food gorged many stomachs this holiday weekend. Slammed to the ears with scents and stuffings enticing a fluid drool dribbling from our mouths, I actually paid a very tiny man to go into my belly and stomp on the inhaled grub as to make room for more than any human should ever eat in a span of so many hours. And I can take you to places in this town where a family would split a loaf of bread, if they were privileged on that day.

Ironically, one of our MCC staff asked me to lead our church staff prayer that morning. Feeling as unequipped and unworthy as usual, I leaned on the only prayer I can recite mostly by memory - the Lord's Prayer. And I sometimes forget all the words to even this. But the Lord's Prayer for 30 minutes? Holy crap. That's what I thought I was about to dish out. But because the Lord cares more for his people to encounter Him than to worry about what some flippant late-adolescent prepares for an assignment, He turned up. The irony arrives when a recollection of my last words words prayed escape to the surface:

"Daddy, in all these things we point to you; we draw the praise to you. May we as a church offer the kind of fasting you have requested – to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. Allow us eyes to see and opportunities to share our food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter, when we see the naked, to clothe them.

"Then we will hear the LORD reply and answer, as we have cried for help, we will hear him say: 'Here I am.'” (adaptation from Isaiah 58)

Prayer of fasting on the day of over-eating and gluttony. Red-handed proof that God has a sense of humor. Perhaps this may live as a reason the the audibility of the Lord's voice grows faintly dim.

After all these dingy domestic dirges died off, I joined a pick up game of good old-fashioned American football; full tackle, full blitz. The was a trip down memory lane and around the corner from bruised up boulevard. We gotta have something so that us boys are socially allowed to touch each other.

One other thing druggedly drags on my mind from this weekend. After staff prayer, Larry Boss, the acting senior pastor pulled me aside (intentional or not, I've no idea) to express thanks and dig into a bit of my past. Where'd you go to college? Major? Etc etc. But the nagger binds me to his simple words after my answer to the reply "Oh, youth ministry. So you want to be a youth minister, huh?" I batted the question away with the rehearsed answer I've been spitting for so many years, "Not really. I don't care to officially work in a church." "We'll talk about this more later," sliced the nagged response I'd been running and hiding from for so long.

Its been a few years now since I vowed to the Holy One Himself that I'd never be an official youth minister or salaried church worker of any kind. Yet one of the most throbbing fears tailing my alleged story resides in a hesitant beckoning to follow through with the degree I originally intended to graduate with.

None of this speculation will mature to fruition. I boldly claim this as my mantra because our current leader remains active for at least one more year. And after that, should roar of the lion-esque schedule follow the path as I have created for it, there will be another tame year even after that before the fearsome adventure persists. All that to say, it should be at least 2 more special years before more consistent/ permanent travel attacks my passions again.

But who has the Lord ever asked for counsel? Certainly not this satiated stomach.