Have you eaten yet?

Voltaire said that “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”

Thank God! This time of year brings many great things. Since Christmas Eve I am certain that we have all had countless gifts, we have opened many items and have probably been oooed and aaahhed to death. The other thing that I can be certain of is the basic fact that we have all been eating like a flock of seagulls on a parking lot of French fries. Dinners Christmas eve, Christmas day breakfasts, Christmas Day dinners, desserts galore, boxing day parties with pot luck fare or dare I say it, another bird which found itself on the wrong end of a death camp firing squad. It is amazing how much food there is to chow down on at this time of great celebration.

One might get lured into believing that we have reached the point where we could loosen our collective belt, let out our gut, and breath deeply and hope to recover from all that fine food. STOP. We can’t do that yet. I am sure that there will be yet more celebration over the weekend and leading into the new year’s eve festivities. So brace yourself.

In the meantime, when you sit down at each of these big meals remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi – “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” For us food is so much pleasure because, as a necessity we take it for granted. But for many in the world, pleasure is not a word they associate with food because they get so little of it. Perhaps we might find ways to respond to the abundance that we enjoy so that God may appear to others in bread that we might offer.

Well I gotta run – I have a venison pie in the oven that need seating.

[EVEN THE SQUIRELLS OUTSIDE MY HOUSE YESTERDAY WERE ENJOYING A CHRISTMAS FEED]