G is for Grapes

This past weekend I went on a retreat. It was a wonderful and amazing weekend. In this transitory period of my life it was like God giving me a drink of water thereby quenching the thirst of a personal journey through a desert, over a mountain and into a valley.

While on this retreat, I picked up a pamphlet called "The Wine Cellar". From what I can tell it is a part of a study called "An Anthology of Precious Blood Spirituality" on social justice. This particular pamphlet is about truth (which I happen to value highly). On the inside cover is a quote from Gaspar del Bufalo, "The heart of Jesus is the wine cellar of the Blood of Christ."

Now besides the journey issues I am dealing with that God addressed on this retreat he also sent me another message. It is about food. Grapes are a really good symbol of what that message was about. You see, I have food issues. I have had them for a very long time. The main problem was that I didn't care about food. On any given day I might have seen it more as a nuisance than a necessity that is to be enjoyed. Don't get me wrong-I like to eat food and try new foods but planning meals, taking time to make them, the conflicting messages about what is healthy and what is not and other things like that just make me really not care about food like I should.

Just before I went on the retreat, I was asked to bring a dish to a gathering that somehow related to either foot health, humor or alcohol awareness...well long story short-I brought a Greek chicken salad and grapes.

See if you can follow this...lol
The grapes connected to foot health (day initiated by a Diabetic Council and grapes are good for diabetics,then consider that grapes being stomped on (feet) is connected to making wine and alcohol awareness. Then as I think about purple feet, I laugh.(Oh, the humor!) And since this was my first time to this group meeting(as in it is "All Greek to me!" and because I relate making wine via the foot stomping method with the Greeks-I brought the Greek Chicken Salad. lol (Makes me feel like singing...Foot Health is connected to...oh just laugh-laughter is good.)

So I connected grapes to wine and then God went on to connect wine to Jesus. (Remember the first quote) Then He gave me more to think about.

Paraphrased from "Simpler Living Compassionate Life A Christian Perspective" that I found at the retreat house- Food is the most direct connection between this world and our need for God. Food is our dependence and our gratitude. It is the living mystery that proclaims God by its existence as it comes from creatures we did not make and powers we can not see.

On addressing eating issues a quote from Wendell Berry, "See "eating" with the fullest pleasure-pleasure that does not depend on ignorance-is the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world."

Funniest thing about all of this was that while on this retreat, I kept thinking things like This food is awesome! This is the best food I have ever eaten! I need these recipes! While I have often seen food as a part of ministries I have never considered food in of itself to be a ministry. Food is good. Thanks be to God.

Blessings and Peace!
JulieD