Tonight I was in the mood for my favorite cafe. Nevermind the perfectly good dinner I’d already prepared at home. Nevermind the calories and budget. I was going to buy a chocolate chip cookie for Brown Sugar, the Thai chicken salad for Hubby, and an Italian BMT on Asiago cheese demi for me—that is, until the cashier informed me, “Oh, we discontinued that bread. But we do have the focaccia.” It was bad enough when they changed my chocolate duet cookie, but now they’d really gone and done it. While I stood there with my mouth open, she blithely explained how they were getting rid of this whole list of unhealthy ingredients and preservatives and that bread—my bread that never hurt a soul—must have contained at least one of them. I’d rather have a little xanthan gum or microcrystalline cellulose than poor service, something I get in abundance these days from businesses who care more about the junk I consume than the junk they expel. Hmmm…when I put it this way I realize I have my own “cafe moments”: I focus too much on what’s going in my little people—are they eating pop tarts instead of eggs; are they watching the Disney channel instead of the History channel; are they employing new Minecraft moves instead of their math facts? —and too little on what’s coming out—a working faith, a gentle tongue, a yielding spirit, loving service. It’s probably good I’ve had to give up my Asiago demi, but I’m grateful I can feast continually on the Living Bread, the One that feeds the body and the soul. “So Jesus said, ‘Are you still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.’” Matthew 16:16-18
Breaking Bread
