Two very different, yet equally holy meals.

Memorial day was fantastic! Noel cooked 3 kinds of meat (four if you you count saucy ribs and not-saucy-ribs as separate meats) on the grill. A family of five, that we've been friends with for a long time came over. It was fun to have kids in the house again, eat lots of meat and talk honestly about our experiences in the neighborhood. It was sunny, we played croquet, we ate a lot of meat and chips and watermelon. We even got drumstick ice cream cones and scooby-doo pushups for desert. I wish that we had pictures, our faces were pretty awesome covered in sauce. It was Holy, it was community, it fed my soul. Thanks LeMays for coming over, you made our days!

This afternoon, I went to lunch with my friend Leah. Leah has a gift of being able to balance the deep conversations with the funny ones. It was cloudy, I was moving slowly and we went to St. Martin's Table, by Riverside and Augsburg. The servers at St. Martin's table are volunteers. The food is simple, there are seven options on the menu, it's vegetarian. Things take awhile to get to your table, and you pay for your meal in a Christian bookstore, filled with resources about Justice, prayer, worship, environmental activism and multiculturalism. Our meals were delicious and simple. The tips from our meal went to support an East African woman's organization. The waitress was a gentle volunteer in her seventies. It was Holy, it was community, it fed my soul. Thanks Leah for going to lunch, you made my day.

Meals are one of the most spiritual things we can do with one another. With three whole years of public ministry to report on, the gospel writers spend a lot of that paper writing about meals. Jesus feeds huge crowds (twice), He changes water in to wine at a wedding feast, there's the last supper and the breaking of bread after the resurrection on the road to Emmaus, He makes Peter and the disciples a fish breakfast on the beach, Zaccheus invites Him over for lunch. You'd think that with just three years to save the world the Messiah might have eaten on the road. But he chose to take the time to eat and to build community.

I remember being at a meeting at church on a Tuesday night. A longtime member of the church said something that offended me deeply. I was mad. I confess, my attitude towards him was not exactly Christlike when I went home that night.

The next night, I was late to our church meal. There really was only one obvious open chair left in the room when I got downstairs. I piled my plate with fried chicken and salad and sat down next to him. Something happens when you share a meal with someone. Rather than seeing them as an adversary in a debate, they become your brother, your uncle, your mom, your niece. Rather than seeing this man as an offensive "other" I was able to see him as a father, a husband, someone who deeply loved his family, whose faith was real. I don't remember what the issue was we were debating at that Tuesday night meeting. It clearly doesn't matter too much anymore. I do remember him talking about how much he loved his kids that night. Which is probably more important anyway.