Welcome to the round table, where it is cool to be square…

Welcome to my new blog. Pull up a chair. Join the conversation. And if you want, have seconds.

Stanley Hauerwas begins his book Community of Character with ten proposed theses to reform the “conventional wisdom of Christian social ethics,” (p. 9). The attempt to channel Luther could come across as somewhat audacious if Hauerwas’s theses were not so keenly insightful and refreshing. Although all of them are worthy of in-depth analysis, I find his eighth thesis particularly compelling. He states that the church does not simply possess a social ethic but is, itself, a social ethic, and that we must therefore “recapture the social significance of common behavior, such as acts of kindness, friendship, and the formation of families.” This idea is my muse for this blog (and I dare say for much of my life). It seems that in order to rediscover the holy in the common, it helps to be as specific about what common behavior we are talking about, lest we fall into an extremely abstract discussion about the importance of the concrete. So here we will talk a lot about eating, not just chewing and swallowing, but the praxis and meaning of mealtimes and food’s spiritual and cultural significance.

But first a few caveats:

1. I’m not here to say that there is one specifically mode of Christian eating per se. I’m not saying that Jesus was a vegetarian, a libertarian, or an octogenarian. And I won’t tell you that it’s a sin to choose the tuna melt over the turkey sandwich for lunch on Wednesday (though I’ve tried the turkey sandwich and it is excellent). What we will talk quite a bit about is the theological ethics of social justice and environmental justice, our culture’s idols and hang-ups, theology of worship, time, embodiment or the mundane, our ecclesiology, and notions of hospitality and the outsider, and stuff and food and foodstuffs.

2. This is not a place to spiritualize being a foodie or a gourmand. Epicureanism is hip these days, and I’m trying not to make this a place that accepts it without comment or criticism. Epicureans and foodies are welcome, but so are just plain eaters. In Leon Kass’s book (soon to be reviewed here) The Hungry Soul, he explores briefly the character of the Epicurean (p 90-91). On one hand, his enjoyment, delight, and ability to appreciate food is respectable, like an art appreciator’s passion for every minor stroke when witnessing an ancient masterpiece. On the other hand, if this passion comes from a raw consumerism or a denial of anything other than the material, it belies a disorder that is neither respectable, nor beautiful. In short, when Epicureanism stops at the enjoyment of food itself, something is lost, but when the delights of the table push us toward remembering the creator of food, and we taste another, greater feast to come then we’re on to something. And that’s what I’m after here.

So to take the pie out of the sky, here is an example, but it is about tacos, not pie. Today, I had a hard day, and I came home through traffic, and my husband had made dinner, but not just any dinner: he made hard-shell tacos, which is a personal favorite (and he made them without any MSG). I sat at the table, eating my non-gourmet tacos, and something happened that was greater than the meal. We bowed our heads to express gratitude. Gratitude for my husband’s mercy to me, gratitude for the connection we had across the table, gratitude for corn and red peppers and Mexico, and gratitude for nourishment from God who gives good gifts. This is the difference between the Epicurean and the worshipper, the former sees pleasure as an end in itself, and the latter finds in pleasure a taste of something more.