"The Fellowship of the Table"

Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting a sequel to the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings.  This is actually a section heading in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together published in 1954.

As I said in an earlier post, the idea behind the More-with-Less cookbook is to find ways to faithfully share our table and food, in the literal and metaphorical sense.  I've put together some quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, and Longacre.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

These quotes do not need me to expound upon them other than to say that as a Mennonite and someone who struggles with AN, I hope to find ways to faithfully eat my own daily bread, share my daily bread with others at my table, and remember that Jesus Christ is the Eternal daily bread for all.

Bonhoeffer, p. 67
"Every mealtime fills Christians with gratitude for the living, present Lord and God, Jesus Christ.  Not that they seek any morbid spiritualization of material gifts; on the contrary, Christians, in their wholehearted joy in the good gifts of this physical life, acknowledge their Lord as the true giver of all good gifts; and beyond this, as the true Gift; the true Bread of life itself; and finally, as the One who is calling them to the banquet of the Kingdom of God.  So in a singular way, the daily table fellowship binds the Christians to their Lord and one another."

Bonhoeffer, p. 68
"The table fellowship of Christians implies obligation.  It is our daily bread that we eat, not my own.  We share our bread.  Thus we are firmly bound to one another not only in the Spirit but in our whole physical being.  The one bread that is given to our fellowship links us together in a firm covenant.  Now none dares go hungry as long as another has bread, and he who breaks this fellowship of the physical life also breaks the fellowship of the Spirit."

 Longacre, p. 25
"As Christians dealing with human hurts, we have to remind ourselves again and again that we are not called to be successful, but to be faithful.  Our first directions come from the way Jesus told us to live, not from what we think will work...Wayne North, then a Mennonite pastor, made his point in an editorial entitled 'Can We Really Help Hunger?... For however they may have felt, the disciples responded in obedience.  They shared what was available.  Though it seemed totally inadequate, they brought the little lunch for distribution.  Their act of faith was to share and let God take responsibility for the rest."

 Bonhoeffer, p. 69
"So long as we eat our  bread together we shall have sufficient even with the least.  Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.  This is a strange divine law.  May not the story of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand with two fishes and five loaves, have, along with many others, this meaning also?
    The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage.  But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house."

National Doughnut Day

"Be willing to celebrate.  Around the world, people who must live on monotonous diets still manage an occasional celebration.  Undoubtedly their celebrations bring enjoyment in proportion to how much they vary from the daily routine.

The four Gospels show Jesus entering wholeheartedly into times of joy and feasting.  We celebrate with family and friends when a holiday or special occasion brings us together.  But the fact that in North America we tend to feast nonstop can dull our festive joy.  We feel guilty about a Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings when we have not lived responsibly in the weeks preceding it.  We require more and more trimming to turn any celebration into a meal distinguishable from our daily diet.

A wedding, a daughter or son's homecoming from far away, an aged parent's birthday, Christmas or Easter--food can help express what these days mean to us.  But there are simple ways to turn meals into celebrations.  Hold in clear perspective the reason for celebrating.  Don't expect food to be the total experience.  More with less means affirming faith and relationships as the basis for celebrating, and letting food play a complementary role."
                                 p. 26-27 Doris Janzen Longacre More-with-Less (italics added for emphasis)


 Today is National Doughnut Day.

The only reason I am aware of this holiday is because I heard a short blurb about it on National Public Radio (NPR) the other day.  The story explained how Dunkin' Donuts will begin offering its new sandwich on National Doughnut Day: fried eggs and bacon on a glazed doughnut.

Intrigued by National Doughnut Day, I began my scholarly research via Wikipedia and Google searches to learn about this day and other food days.

Here's what I discovered:
"National Doughnut Day started in 1938^[1] as a fund raiser for Chicago's The Salvation Army. Their goal was to help the needy during the Great Depression, and to honor The Salvation Army "Lassies" of World War I, who served doughnuts to soldiers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Doughnut_Day

Many countries have specially recognized food days.
Italy has National Espresso Day.
The Netherlands have National Pancake Day.

Depending on which list you look at, the U.S. has somewhere between 175 and over 300 food days.  Some days even have two special foods.  August 2 is National Ice Cream Sandwich day and National Ice Cream Soda Day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_days
http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/National_Symbols/American_Hollidays.html

We have essentially made National Doughnut Day's real meaning irrelevant because we've created so many other pointless days.
The reason for celebrating has been lost.  We don't know that we're supposed to be honoring the women who volunteered with the Salvation Army.  We're just having a doughnut.

And to compound the issue, we're "just having a doughnut" many mornings.   One statistic claims that more than 10 billion doughnuts are eaten every year in the U.S.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_doughnut_get_eaten_each_year

As Longacre pointed out, "celebrations bring enjoyment in proportion to how much they vary from the daily routine."  If we have a doughnut every morning, the celebration is lost when it comes time for National Doughnut Day.

Not only do we not remember the reason we're celebrating, our joy has been dulled so that a regular glazed doughnut won't satisfy.  We have to continually create new exciting doughnuts, like the egg, bacon, glazed doughnut to make the celebration feel any different than a regular day.