Faith Works 8-19-06
Jeff Gill

Let Us Break Bread Together

Thanksgiving is perhaps the high holy day of American civil religion, shared by most whatever their faith tradition.
It is a meal, usually shared among family and close friends, with certain rituals and traditions tied to how you set, select, and eat the meal.
There is a sort of tie to Passover, the great feast of Judaism, which is itself a home based observance. Certain dishes and dishware, words said even in secular households, and a meal with meaning going back over 3,000 years.
A meal, not too removed from the basics of people coming together to share some food, is central to the work of faith for almost every tradition likely to read "Faith Works." Native American spirituality holds to the holy in every mealtime, with many traditional peoples setting aside a small "offering" of the first spoonful out of each dish. Many pagan and neo-pagan observant folk pour out a libation onto the soil before eating themselves.
Buddhism has traditions of offerings on their altars where food, usually rice or mealcakes, are placed; Shinto, Japan’s tradition of honoring ancestors, places such offerings on home altars and take full dinners on certain occasions to gravesites.
So can a picnic be holy? Well, most religious people would want to ask first about intention, and where that intention is aimed (or to Whom), and many perspectives would want to see what is getting done – what effects result from the intention.
But I just want to say "Sure it can." Any time people come together to share food is a chance for something greater than one’s own concerns and interests to break through, and that’s an opening for the holy, or at least the Wholly Other.
Eating a burger in your car listening to channel 437 on your satellite radio: it would take direct divine intervention, I think, to break through our tendency to self-absorption then. A picnic, though, forces one to take others into consideration from setting up the table to sharing the last piece of pie. Nature must be faced, at least to fastening tablecloths against stray breezes, and accepted with equanimity (think ants). The fading sunlight reminds us of the passing of time, and the inevitable laughter and play of children all around calls us to hope in the future.
Can a picnic be holy? More than most of our commonplace acts, and with a little good intention and positive results (meeting neighbors, taking up a bit of excess for food pantries, putting ourselves second), the power of a simple grace and sitting down together is hard to stop.
Even after school starts, there is still enough room in our shrinking evenings and cooler weekends for some picnic opportunity to break into the everyday. Grab a chance when you get one!
Of tailgating, we will not speak.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he does not, in fact, think green bean casserole is a sacrament. Share a picnic prayer with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.