Good-bye, little comforts, for a time.
God has given you to me, and now with great thanksgiving, I give you back to Him for a season. On Tuesday night when I lay my head upon my pillow, with my belly full of the last bits of carne asada and gummy candies and red wine, I shall close my eyes and thank God for you all.
On Wednesday I shall be giving you all up, not forever, not with anger, not because you have failed me, but because I want to get you back again. Precisely because I want you all more deeply, wanting to not lose you forever, I will lay you down. Such is the act of love: laying down what we could never keep to keep what we could never lose.
People talk about “giving things-up for good” —a phrase I confess not to understand. When did “for good” stop meaning “for good things” or “for goodness” or “for something better” and instead mean “forever” and imply a terminus on our enjoyment of a thing?
I too promise to give you all up “for good” —but literally. For the good of my body and soul, wherewith I am sometimes tempted to make you and idol, I am giving you up only to pick you back up after my affections have been readjusted. For the good of you all, of which I have become too familiar and undazzled, I am giving you up in order to come back to you awakened once more to your beauty.
To Meat: I will miss you, especially on days when I have exercised and my body longs for the kind of protein no amount of legumes can pretend to be. I will miss your presence also, and very terribly, when making stocks and soups. My love for garlic and onions and peppers and celery does not make me blind to the fact that a vegetarian stock pales in comparison to a stock made from the resurrected bones of animals when like Ezekiel I have come to their dry carcasses and made them live again in the pot on the stove. Good-bye beloved little thing.
To Sweets: Though smallest among my appetitive affections, like the tribe of Benjamin, I have not forgotten you. You were my first creaturely love when I was a boy, and comfort me still. My sweet tooth may not have been faithful as I’ve grown older, but you, Sweet Things, have been faithful. Oh fidelity! Oh chocolate darker than Sheol! Oh lemon sorbet brighter than golden earrings playing on my wife’s cheek! Oh sour gummies of every make and model, tricksters of the pallet! Terrible shall your absence be.
To Drink: Farewell sabbath brew, vinted glory, water in excelsis, distilled spirits of flame, liquid shalom! May the next forty days find me a better master and better friend. May it teach me to honor you more deeply and respect your severe boundaries more soberly. It hope our separation forms in me a greater lover and a wiser king. I will not drink of you again, fruit of the vine, until I do so on Pascha at the Table of the Kingdom. Until then, my dear Omega beverage!
To All: I shall see you each Sunday and enjoy you for a moment —ah what happy days Sundays in Lent are— and I cannot wait to receive you fully again on Easter. Until that time know that I think fondly of you. It is my hope in our long absence that my appetitive hunger for you will work to draw me closer to Jesus and that, as I draw closer to Him, I will return to you renewed inwardly so that all my taking of you after Lent becomes more fully for the glory of God. From Him are all things, to Him are all things, to Him be the glory.
Unless a seed falls to the ground it will not bear fruit. I lay you down now that my love for you might be fruitful for the Kingdom. I look forward to picking you all back-up glorified!