Food as Prayer

I am reading The Quotidian Mysteries: laundry, liturgy, and "women's work" by Kathleen Norris. In it, Norris discusses the sacred task of everyday living within a feminist framework.

Today, I am also contemplating a question asked in the middle school health curriculum: "what are your natural highs?" When I was first presented with this question, I was frustrated. I don't know!  Exercise doesn't do it for me; although I have plenty of friends who get the runner's high. Adrenaline-producing activities don't do it for me; anything remotely exciting makes me fall asleep like a possum.

But Food!  Good food with good friends. Good food with a good book. Making food. Eating food at a restaurant. Eating at a friend's house.

As I sit in a café eating delicious food, drinking cappuccino, and reading Norris' book, I realize that I've answered more than just that one question. Food feeds me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Appreciating the farmers who have grown the tasty ingredients, the cooks who have combined them in delightful ways, and the people who surround me at the table, I sink into the peace and fullness of God and creation.

Congregational confirmation

I've been a member of the United Church of Christ for three months now, so I still look at everything that happens at First Congregational through Episcopalian eyes.  Sunday's worship service included the confirmation of three teen boys.

I know none of the theology of the Congregational Church, other than it's congregational... A very flat hierarchy with most decisions made by the consensus of the individual congregation. So I have no idea why they have confirmation. In the Episcopal Church it was originally meant as a time for the bishop (who visited an individual church every few years) to confirm that the baptisms that had happened since he has been there last were legit.

From the sermon and liturgy Sunday, it seemed to be closer to what confirmation has become in the Episcopal Church: a time for adolescents to make their faith their own. The confirmands reaffirm their baptismal vows that were made for them as infants.

The part of the liturgy that was the most beautiful to me was the laying on of hands. Since there isn't a bishop, both pastors, and the ENTIRE congregation, lay hands on each confirmand.  As I stood there with my hand on the shoulder of the man ahead of me in the aisle, with the hand of another person on my shoulder, I prayed for the young men making this public statement of faith. I also prayed for the light of Christ to fill up every person in this physical chain of prayer.

Beautiful!