I had been praying about my life's purpose when I was asked to help at the soup kitchen.
I
was assigned to the serving table just after the greeter. At exactly
12:30 p.m. the line that snaked out from the church basement on to the
sidewalk started to move and we were ready. Just pass the greeter was a
long table of steaming food. I would dish out a square of pasta
casserole and a spoonful of sauce. "Here's some pasta for you? Would you
like some sauce?" After my tray were french fries, then salad, bread
and desert. About 150 people came through the line. Mostly men, but
some women and one women with her three children. It was a free hot
lunch provided for anyone who would show up, served every week day at
the Broomfield CME Church in Richmond, VA.
"Hi Would you like some sauce?"
I
know from online research that Richmond has about 6000 homeless people
and roughly one third are chronically homeless (meaning that they live
on the street). I also know from reading the paper that in Wilmington
the face of hunger is changing and now includes younger people,
including working families, that just can't make the food budget
stretch.
"Hello, Would you like some sauce with that?"
A
little pasta sauce doesn't sound like much against such daunting
need..but then I have a need too. I need to serve and I need to have my
life be about more than being busy trying to get somewhere and
accumulating more stuff. After 2 years of using the Sacred and Fit
principles to create a healthy lifestyle, I've noticed that spending
more time in prayer and meditation starts to have a larger effect in your
life than eating and exercise. A few months ago, I just KNEW that I was
supposed to do something more than hand the homeless guy a couple of
dollars. So, I started to pray about places to serve.
"Would you like some more sauce?"
Doesn't
sound like I'm doing much, just spooning on Ragu. But to get here, I
had to leave my job in the middle of the day, postpone some tasks till
later tonight and add about 40 miles to my commute. Serving this sauce
is costing me something precious, my time...and that is a good thing.
I've
written on this blog about how, as part of my Sacred and Fit training, I
started to eat slower and more mindfully and found that I ate less and
better. As I connected my eating to my spiritual growth in terms of
sense control and self-control I felt one aspect of growth was becoming
more sensitive to the still small voice. So when the word came to serve,
I could hear it.
I have two daughters that are making
big transitions in the coming days, one has even quit her day job and
is moving across the country to follow her entrepreneurial dream.
Because they both have deep spiritual practices (and are a zillion
times more focused than I was in my 20's and 30's), I am not worried
about them. In fact, I am trusting them to trust the still small voice
within them.
I can't say that expanding your spiritual
practices will instantly solve all of your problems but I can say that
aligning your eating with your prayer life, is ONE way to begin a
process of quieting your mind and slowing your pace so that you can
begin to hear what is most important, like the next step for your life,
how to have peace of mind, how to live with a purpose or go after your
vision.
Every January I begin the year with two
activities, I create or add to my vision board, a collection of words
and pictures that reflect my intentions for the new year. This year's
vision board is about Growth, as in growing up as a Christian. Maybe I
won't mature to the point of raising the dead or walking on water, but I
know that I heard the word "serve." So, I'm starting at the Soup
Kitchen and I will keep listening. The other activity is a fast. I have
fasted for many years and my goal is always to fast in a way that leads
to a fasted life. I fast for a purpose greater than not eating for 21
days but to have a profound effect on the other 344 days. Through my
purposeful fast, I've adopted eating mindfully and eating mostly raw
food. I've learned to limit exposure to television, violent
entertainment and overall contention. I cultivated a desire to keep my
clothes organized, my spending on budget and to avoid paper clutter. And
I am learning to diminish my need for more stuff (ceiling on desires)
and treat my work as worship. All of this through fasting and prayer.
If you want to read more about vision boards click here for a past blog posting.
Today
is the first day of the 21 day church fast at New Beginning Christian
Church in Wilmington, NC. Feel free to join in. More about S&F
fasting basic's can be found here
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