‘Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will... delight--in the richest of fare’ (Isaiah 55:2)
"People have to eat. This fact is far from a sorrowful necessity. So much so that many, rejoicing at the sight of a grand repast, remark: "I live to eat." For as long as history, eating has been seen as much more than mere grazing. Personality and sociology enter in to it. A meal eaten in solitude is only partly a meal. Eating is more, when bread is broken together."
"The food is on the table. It delights the eyes and nose, tantalizing the palate. As you eat, you remark on the food to those with you. Together you enjoy the life-giving substances. It is a celebration of your shared life, and humanity."
"Our Scripture has God likening himself to a feast. To listen to God, to delight in him, to seek him, and call on him; in short, to include God as the sustaining, and joyous necessity on which one's very existence depends, is to eat, drink and be satisfied in an unequaled, and decisive way."
"May your meat and drink be God, and may you be satisfied."
‘And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God’ (Micah 6:8)
"The temptation to think better of ourselves than we ought is notoriously powerful. To some degree it is a reflex action against the aggression of others. In youth it can be wrought by fear of new experiences. We are anxious not to be seen to be afraid, so we train ourselves to misjudge our true condition. We eat up praise when we get some, and minimize criticism."
"Developing pride... forges habits---that conceal from us the truth of ourselves."
"Usually it takes a shock such as personal loss or misfortune to tear down the props we have built up around our false self. Grief and shame can be wonderfully liberating as they facilitate the emergence of a self that acknowledges the supremacy of God, and the need for constant dependence upon him."
"Nothing is more suited to the maintenance of this disposition than frequent meditation on Christ; his story; his teaching, life, death, and triumph. In Christ's presence the masks we shelter behind are taken away. We are left open to the gaze of God. We are seen for what we are. More, we are loved despite what we are. Higher, nobler possibilities are presented to us in the Son of God. Self renunciation and service are seen as the pathway to self realization at its highest level. We are fitted to 'walk humbly with our God'."