Thawing The Ice

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

—John 21:15

After the dinner party that cold, dim February night, I stayed up long after the guests left, letting the candles burn down, remembering how the table looked and how each bite tasted. I felt nourished on an impossibly deep level, thankful and full and proud and humbled all in the same moment. It felt like we’d been a part of something important, something larger than a meal, like we’d managed to thaw the ice just for an evening and traverse bridges normally impassable. The next morning, Aaron kept remarking that I seemed unusually buoyant. It may have been that I had Stefany’s chocolate cake for both breakfast and lunch, but in any case, I fairly glided through the day, bouncing on the bright feelings of the night before as I put away the wineglasses and counted out the money we’d collected for my neighbor, the pastor of the food truck church.

Sometimes the most spiritual things we do are the most physical, the most tactile. Feeding people is one of those things, whether we’re helping to feed hungry people, or feeding the hunger in each one of us on these dark and heavy winter nights.