EAT DESSERT FIRST [Sa, 3-9-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—EAT DESSERT FIRST [Sa, 3-9-24]

 

One of the lesser-known disciplines of Lent is eating dessert first. It is important to get temptation out of the way quickly.

The great thing about old age is that you have permission to eat dessert first. You might die before the meal is over, so why miss out on the best part?

Our friends, Glenn and Allyson, used to visit an elderly couple in the local version of Shady Pines. I’ll call the old couple Homer and Hazel. They had children, but they lived a long way off. So, Glenn and Allyson went in their place. One visit they took cookies. “Don’t you eat a cookie, Homer,” his wife said. “Sugar isn’t good for you.” “For heaven’s said, Hazel,” Glenn said. “Let him have a cookie. He’s 102 years old.”

I was a campus minister in the 1960s. Boys from my campus began to go off to Viet Nam as soldiers. When they returned, they told of life in the war. One thing they told about pierced my heart. They said that when they broke open their meal packs, they took first the little metal can of peaches and ripped it open and gulped it down as quickly as possible. “It was the only good thing in the meal. If you got killed before the meal was over, you didn’t want to miss out on the one good thing.”

It was so sad. I still cry when I think about it. But even in the midst of chaos and pain and evil, they were doing the right thing. They were eating dessert first.

It’s so easy to want to get everything in order, get the little stuff out of the way, before you start on the important stuff. No, don’t wait until you’ve trashed all the spam emails. Let them lie. Go ahead and write that note of appreciation, or help, or love. Don’t wait until you’ve balanced the check book; go ahead and make that donation to the food pantry now. Don’t wait until the dishes are clean and put away and you have time to fold your hands and kneel; go ahead and thank God for all your blessings now.

The lesson of Easter is that life doesn’t begin until the end. Eat dessert first.

John Robert McFarland