HONOR: AN ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

BREAKFAST: 2 orange-berry muffins, banana and peanut butter, coffee
LUNCH: pumpkin muffin; farro salad with spinach and feta; "leap-day soup" (lentils and green things. Why this makes it leap day besides the obvious was not so obvious); apple bread pudding
DINNER: chickpea fries covered in pea tendrils with a lemon aoli, date sweet-n-sour sauce,honey fancy-schmancy something, and toasted pumpkin seeds. Veggie pot pie (mushrooms, kale, potatoes, brussels sprouts, soy chorizo). All from Nana in Bridgeport. Dee-vine. Need I say more??
DESSERT: hot chocolate and dark chocolate chips

ORIGIN OF ONE ITEM: The website of Nana offers a map of all the growers and producers they work with. I highly encourage this place as a great Chicago local food option!

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION:

Genesis 9:12‐13.
And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth."


For me, sacrifice brings up ideas of animals being slaughtered on ancient stone altars. Or giving up something. You know the popular language of how we all must make sacrifices in this world to get somewhere, blah blah blah. To sacrifice is to invite suffering. But in reading Gen. 9 for today's reflection, I'm reminded of this idea of conventant as it connects to sacrifice. A sacrifice used to also demonstrate or represent the covenant God had with Israel. Though the acts surrounding covenant changed over time, the reason for performing such an act was the same: to show we honor our relationship with God.

Ellen F. Davis of Duke Divinity School has asserted that "eating is practical theology, or it should be: daily it gives us the opportunity to honor God with our bodies." In food and faith conversations, we could talk about eating healthy and locally as honoring our bodies, farmers, and the Earth. And we should. But I like Ellen's words because they remind me that at the center of all of these things, or maybe running between all these things, is God.
Ellen goes on to say in her book,  An Agrarian Reading of the Bible, that every day, "taking our sustenance from the earth and from the bodies of other animals, we enter deeply into the mystery of creation. Our never‐failing hunger is a steady reminder to acknowledge God as the Giver of every good gift."

So in our 3-times daily opportunity to honor God, there is sacrifice of others' time, labor, and resources. Which we should acknowledge. But let us not get so caught up in what we eat, who we eat with, or even how we got our food, that we forget to forge a space for honor in our minds. Neither mindless or mind-ful, how do we let God open us to experience the mystery that is our covenant with God? Is there honor at our table?

Erika