Rare is the day I do not eat bread. I love it. Any form. A sliced loaf of sourdough wheat, tortillas, flatbread, pastries. Bubba is to shrimp as Jeff is to bread.
The first time I went to the Sea of Galilee we stayed at a Scottish Hotel on the water. They made their own bread. Every night we would walk into the dining room around 7:00 and head straight for the bread table. An entire table filled with different kinds of bread. Somebody slap me and tell me I'm not dreaming. Some nights I just stood there at the table breathing. The aromas were intoxicating. Of all the breads, I hope I never forget the taste of the hot black olive bread. We are not talking here about olives from a can. Nope. Fresh from Mediterranean trees in hand-kneed-slow-rising knock your socks off bread.
Shoot.
In my earlier years, beginning at eight years old, I came home from school to an empty house. Almost every day I walked in, turned on the TV, and made myself a ham and cheese sandwich on Mrs. Baird's Large White. I still love sandwiches.
You may already know, O faithful bloggerland friend, that today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday when Lent begins. For the past five or six years I have tried it out. Not growing up in a liturgical tradition, I always thought Lent was cruel. Having lived for four years in a largely Mexican-Catholic town in South Texas, I was introduced to Lent when my friend Norman Garza said he was going to give up candy for Lent. I thought that sounded rather stupid. But then Norman told me he was replacing all the times he would normally eat candy with a time of prayer.
Funny what we remember.
Norman's prayer-life hit me, even at an age when God was not really on my radar. But then I got in touch with God. Although truthfully, I was never a big fan of prayer. No one ever taught me how to do it. So a handful of years ago I got interested in prayer, and thought I would give this whole Lent thing a shot.
What would I give up? I thought to myself, "What do I take in almost every day?" The answer was easy: Meat. Plus, meat was one of the early things people gave up when the tradition of Lent began in the Middle Ages. Lent was tough, but I remember cravings being replaced by more serious prayer than I think I had ever experienced up to that point.
The second year was a complete disaster. Don't ask.
One of the years was on my first trip to Israel. I attended Ash Wednesday worship in Jerusalem. That was something. That was also the year I decided to give up anxiety. Good call.
Last year, because of many transitions, I did not take the time to fast. I may should have, but Cancun and fasting do not exactly go hand-in-hand.
But this year, well, this year is a time of great rejoicing. My life is better than it has ever been. And so, not out of coercion, not out of guilt, and certainly not out of mere tradition, but rather out of thanksgiving, I am going to join brothers and sisters around the world as we enter a season of fasting and prayer in anticipation of celebrating together the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This year, prayer will replace one of the things I love the most in this world.
Bread.
In John 6, Jesus feeds an enormous crowd with fish and bread. They were hungry. Bread fills. Case closed. Or so they thought. Instead, Jesus later used that event to teach his followers about eternal bread. Bread that never spoils. Bread of heaven. When Jesus mentioned such things, his followers begged for that bread. Jesus responded, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry."
I love bread. But I will confess that I sometimes depend on the things of this world more than the things of heaven. Not because I want to, but because it is easy.
Much easier it would be to dismiss Lent as a top-down manufactured tradition invented by a corrupt autocracy to suppress the masses. More difficult it is to eschew cynicism in order to remind myself that when I crave the things of this world, the bread of heaven is waiting there to be feasted upon with joy and gladness.
"Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread." - Proverbs 30:8
