Feasting, Lumps and All!

       When I was growing up, my mom was always saying that my brothers had hollow legs.  I was never quite sure what she meant until I had sons of my own and they started growing.  I think they were always hungry!  They would come home from school and go through the kitchen looking for something to eat.  I learned how to be prepared or else the kitchen would look like a hoard of locusts had gone through and eaten everything in sight!
       This willingness to eat anything and everything came in handy though.
       One time when my parents were gone for several days, I was left in the care of my older brothers and sisters.  At the ripe age of twelve, I decided I was going to show off my cooking skills by making fried chicken and gravy with mashed potatoes and some can of vegetables.  I did okay until it came to making gravy.
       I knew that mom would make gravy by mixing flour into the fat in the pan.  The step that I missed was that she would pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of grease.  So I put it flour and flour and flour, trying to make a roux.  It was a good thing I was using the big and deep chicken pan, because after cooking that a bit and scraping up all the good flavor bits, I began adding milk and water to make the gravy and it took more and more liquid to keep from becoming a thick paste.  By the time supper was ready, I had a huge pan full of gravy!
       By the time the gravy started to cool a bit, it got thick enough to spread with a knife.  I was so embarrassed, especially as my oldest brother had a friend from college with him.  But the guys thought it was great! (I don't remember where my sisters where that night.)
       After everything else was eaten, one of them went to the kitchen and got a loaf of bread and they proceeded to pile bread and gravy onto their plates, and eating their way through it.  They loved it and did a good job of making that terrible gravy disappear!  They said later that it was a wonderful feast and would I do it again some time.
       From birth, children go through growth spurts where their bodies demand more calories.  It is demanding and can be tiring to keep up with it especially when nursing a baby, but how wonderful a blessing it is when you have the resources to give them the resources they need.  And how awful it must be to not have enough food to give your children.
       Perhaps that is why that there are many places in the Bible where God's love, blessings and grace are equated with feasts and gathering together God's people to feed them.  Just before his crucifixion and after the resurrection, Jesus tells the disciples to gather at the table to eat together and to go from there to serve those in need.  We "do this to remember" Jesus.
       It is no wonder then that so much research has shown that the best thing we can do for our families is to eat together.  The family meal is the best prevention of drug abuse, dropping out of school, and other things such as teen-age pregnancy.  It is a powerful thing when we gather together at the table and share a meal.  Even of lumpy, spreadable gravy on white bread or boxed macaroni and cheese.  Make a meal to share and begin with prayer, inviting God to share your table.  Read Isaiah 25:6-8