Sunday, August 30, 2009

Holy Communion At The Church Of The Batshit Crazy


So this morning was the morning we were to eat our four tiny eggs. Here they are in a carton with four regular-sized eggs that our neighbor's chickens laid for comparison.


Aren't they precious?

Anyway, I didn't wake up until the ungodly, unheard-of hour of 9:30 a.m. after oh, about nine hours or so of solid, lovely sleep. Sure, I woke up with a few hot flashes but let's not expect miracle upon miracle. Let us not ask for the impossible. Let us be grateful for the merely blessed and good.

Before I started cooking, I advised Mr. Moon, who had been up for quite some time, to go ahead and cut the cantaloupe in the kitchen and eat some of that because surely, breakfast was now going to be brunch, and as we all know, brunch must always involve some cantaloupe. I drank some coffee and read some of the paper and then we went out to the chicken coop and gave the rinds and the seeds to the chickens and we admired them and loved up the ones who would let us and then we came in and I began to cook.

I mixed up some biscuits and started the lovely applewood smoked bacon that Ms. Fleur had gifted us with.



I patted the biscuits out into a pie tin and set them in the oven.



Mr. Moon was outside, puttering around with something having to do with hunting season preparation. I began to think, it being Sunday and all, about holy communion and that whole eat-of-my-body thing and how every time we ingest anything, something has had to die to feed us, whether a carrot or a pig or a deer. Even, I suppose, an egg, although if it is not fertilized, it would never develop into a baby chicken, no matter what, so perhaps unfertilized chicken eggs are completely guilt-free, although the hens probably suffer some discomfort in laying them. Or, perhaps it is an orgasmic, completely ecstatic experience. I will never know. And what a carrot could grow up to be is beyond me, unless you are speaking of baby carrots which, when we eat, we deny the possibility of it growing up to be a full-grown adult carrot.

Food is a sensitive subject and I would say more so than ever these days with the raw foods people and the organic foods people and the free-range people and the fruitarians, vegetarians, pescatarions, vegans, and those who believe in the cave-man diet.

But if you go back to the old testament, you will see that there were multiple rules then,too, about the food to eat and not to eat and how to raise it, grow it, harvest it and so forth. In fact, if you broke some of those laws, you were apt to be stoned to death so I suppose we are better off now than we were then.

All I know is that probably, the closer to the source, the healthier the food. Thus, a peanut is better for us than peanut butter and fruit plucked from a local tree is better for us than a fruit smoothie we get at the mall. Etc.

And I also know that for me, cooking is generally something I love to do and I do it with consciousness and I do it with full respect for the ingredients I use as well as the people I am cooking for and if I have grown what we are eating or Mr. Moon has hunted it and brought it home, so much the better and, if my opinion, the more sacred, and is of better service to our bodies and souls.

Not to say I don't enjoy peanut butter and pork chops, too.

BUT, it was with a great deal of satisfaction that I cracked the very substantial shells of Ms. Red's eggs and let them spill into a bowl in preparation for cooking.



We have raised these chickens from the tiniest of peeps and I have watched them grow and nurtured that growth and loved each and every one of them for months now and I feel so gifted with these eggs.


The bacon and the biscuits were done and I slid the eggs into the pan, two at a time and salted and peppered them.


I managed to cook them without breaking their yolks and I served them up to Mr. Moon and myself on the back porch and he waited for me to be ready with my own plate to take the first bite.

Yes. Too much bacon. So what?


And we ate our eggs and our bread and our meat and if that wasn't a holy breakfast, I don't know what was. The body of Jesus may have been in there for all I know although I doubt it.

But I was thinking about how when I am on my deathbed, I doubt seriously I will be regretting the fact that I never saw the Parthenon by moonlight. I think I will be thinking about cracking fresh green eggs into a bowl and serving them to my husband with biscuits and bacon and about how completely and utterly satisfying that was to me. I think I will be thinking about patting out biscuits and picking greens from my garden and cooking them in my big pot and then eating them with my family.

I believe I will think of those things and also how it felt in the morning to get that first cup of coffee, and also how it felt to hang the clothes on the line, to feed the chickens, to walk to the creek, to lie down at night on sunwashed sheets, fresh from outside. I will think about how it felt to nestle tiny plants into dark earth and water them.

And of course I will think about how it felt to dance with my husband and my children. I will think about how it felt to close my eyes and listen to music made by people I love. I will think about how it felt to give birth to a baby, to take it to my breast, to offer it the milk my body made.

I will think about all of those things and I will regret that I did not get more of it.
That's what I believe. That in doing each of these things, these most basic of things- and what can be more basic than the sharing and eating of bread?- that I am partaking of something deeply holy and deeply satisfying. These human/animal things and yes, I think Jesus was on to something when he broke that blessed bread and offered it around the table. He may have gone a little far (or some future reporter did) with the whole this-bread-will-turn-into-my-body thing but so what?

And that's my sermon for today- the holy blessedness of the smallest things. How if we pay attention and take care, even a fried egg can be consecrated unto our use. And I suppose that's what I'm always talking about, one way or another.

Those eggs were good. And now I need to wash up the dishes, another holy chore and one, unless I am not mistaken, I will not miss quite as much as messing them up preparing food to eat.

One never knows, though. I certainly don't. All I know is that for right now, at this moment in time, I am walking in grace and I filled with the goodness of grace and clean skillets and plates and bowls will only add to that and it is Sunday and I am content.

26 comments:

  1. "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you..."

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  2. This post has brought tears to my eyes. I wish that I'd been at your house for Sunday communion. Although your post makes me recognize that my own morning was just fine -- breakfast with my family, the hum of Sophie in her room, the opening of the newspaper. All good.

    Thank you, Ms. Moon!
    P.S. I made fried okra last night which I haven't done since I lived in the south (did you know that I grew up in Georgia?) -- I decided that I needed something fried. I'm saving your recipe for another time.

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  3. SJ- I thought of that when I wrote it. It's so true and amen!

    Elizabeth- I did NOT know you're from Georgia. Where in Georgia? 'Cause we're like fifteen miles from Georgia. And fried okra is the best and sometimes instead of frying it, I bread it and bake in the oven which is also mighty good. Do you eat it with ketchup? I do.

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  4. Well, praise be to little green eggs and what we may think on our death beds.

    Funny you should mention the Parthenon. I thought, just the other day, I may never see the Parthenon in the moonlight but I have THIS and I've seen plenty.

    Hallelujah and amen and all that jive, Ms. Moon.

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  5. An examined life truly worth living! And a lived life truly worth examining! Forever and ever amen.

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  6. ooh we had almost the same breakfast today...me and B had eggs and applewood smoked bacon (ours from the farmers market) and bagels.

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  7. That was a great Sunday sermon today. Thank you so much for that.

    This morning I watched as my street filled with cars for the church directly in front of my house. I watched the mostly young, black folks walk in, dressed up so finely. I was thinking that I might join them one day to see how their church is compared to my and Mama's... I doubt it's as tasty or honest as ours, but I don't know until I have experienced it for myself.

    Hope I can come home to get me some of those eggs real soon. Maybe I will help you hang clothes, weed the garden, or help Daddy with his hunting stuff, or whatever he's doing these days. That would be real nice.

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  8. Ms. Trouble- I know. I'm so damn lucky. And funny we should both think of the Parthenon by moonlight. Not something I think about regularly.

    Joy- What a sweet thing to say. Thank-you!

    Ms. Eden- Hey! How are you? Bagels sound wonderful.

    HoneyLuna- Yep. You should go to church one Sunday. See what you're missing. Liz and I just sat and had a great chat. Your name came up several times. We love you. But oh, I bet you knew that.
    I wish you were here right now to help me get the clothes OFF the line. It's about to rain.
    Kisses, honeychile.

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  9. Thanks for the sermon.

    It is not often that our culture uses death as an adviser, which you have done very nicely here. I believe that is what it is supposed to be used for, not for feeling guilty.

    Those eggs look almost turquoise!! They are lovely.
    xo pf

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  10. Mmmm breakfast on the porch. Your food is always so delicious. The eggs look so cute!

    I think it's funny that the word verification I have to type in to post this comment is 'blesit'.

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  11. I never commented on my pastor's sermon, and I won't comment on yours. Just shake my hand and say thanks for coming. And I will say thank you, and ball up the kleenex that I used to wipe up the snot that came with the tears that came with your words.

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  12. Ms. Fleur- I hear that Carlos Castaneda told someone once that in order to truly love, you have to look at the person you are loving and think to yourself, "This person will die someday." I have never forgotten that. It is good to remember that we, too, will die.

    Meli- I always like to cook for you. Always. And that is a very good verification word.

    Ms. Windy- You're so sweet. And you better be reading this in BED! I advised your wife to use duct tape if need be to keep you there.

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  13. There's no such thing as too much bacon...

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  14. Hear, hear. There is NO such thing as "too much bacon". And also, all good breakfasts include the cantaloupe! Thank you for the sermon...glad for it as I've been skipping church for over a year.

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  15. Ms. Moon -- I grew up in Atlanta. I went to college in North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and lived for many years in Nashville as well. In my late twenties I moved to New York City and then onward to Los Angeles. I was born in New York and don't really identify with the south, other than having a grandmother from the Mississippi Delta which makes it official in some way...

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  16. Michelle- My tummy was not so sure of that philosophy.

    Cindy- You may have been skipping church, but I doubt you have been skipping worship service.

    Elizabeth- Get out! My mother went to that same college, I believe, when it was a woman's college And Mr. Moon is from Nashville. No wonder we have found each other.

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  17. your blog seems ravenous to eat up all my very best comments ms moon.

    makes me mad enough to spit, i tell you!

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  18. This is exactly it. I love you, Mama.

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  19. Then you have seen the Parthenon in the moonlight - the one in Nashville is supposed to be the most accurate replica of it.

    Ah, Nashville connections! It keeps happening. :-)

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  20. I'm converted to batshit crazy. You do make me hungry, though. Amen. Off to find some food.

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  21. Adrienne- NO! I want ALL of your comments.

    May- Thank-you, sweetheart.

    Joy- I have seen the Nashville Parthenon but not by moonlight. It's sort of awesome, even in the daytime.

    Mwa- We do love the good food here at the COBC.

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  22. Delicious, my friend. What a lovely post.

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  23. Ms. Moon,
    You are the most religious person I know in the best sense.

    You are loved,

    SB

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  24. Amen and amen. This instant, this mouthful, this life, this breath, this being.

    Thank you for the morning meditation.

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