15th and 16th May: 'O taste and see how gracious the Lord is'

Friday night I watched with immense pleasure This Week with Alan Partridge. There was a segment in this episode which concerned cocktails. It included some wonderful lines that summed up my approach to cocktails; such as, "when you see the barman reaching for the pestle and mortar, don't you think, 'I wish I'd ordered a pint'?" Then, amongst well-known cocktails, he included 'Shandy'. 

Now, when it comes to a 'cocktail of drugs', my only pharmaceutical tipple had been paracetamol with ibuprofen: the Shandy of the pharmacy world. Hence, when I am handed over five different coloured, and shaped, tablets in a paper 'shot-glass,' I feel like I'm on an apothecary's Hen Night.  

The doctor had in fact promised me that, "we can give you the good stuff in hospital". That couldn’t have been more true!

I am pain-free and, thanks to the steroids, slightly 'buzzing'. Thus, for the first time in what feels like an age, I feel mentally able to exit from my whole/pit/cell... sorry, room, or more accurately, the immediacy of my condition, and reflect. 

The exit and reflection process has been further aided by Sarah's constant desire to ensure I ring the culinary changes in hospital. I, by contrast, am a creature of habit in terms of food. I never really left the nursery, and in isolation would live off soft boiled eggs and soldier fingers. However, I am blessed to be married to a gourmand who has also produced at least one other chef/sommelier, and another whose food tastes are err, downright weird!

Thus, food features highly in the house, and corn-flakes for supper are no longer an option.

On enquiring what delights I was subjecting myself to, Sarah demanded to see the menu. Apparently, sausage and mash for lunch, and roast chicken for supper, everyday(!) is not a balanced diet. I proffered that things being exactly the same is the very definition of balanced. This, I was told, is NOT true. 

I, like Rumpole, muttered "She who must be obeyed", and duly sent a photo of the boggling choices before me. 

The WhatsApp message came back. I had my orders. So from today (16th), like so many others before, Sarah ushered in a new dawn, and I ordered fish and chips. Alas, this was a particularly dry number and, in order to accommodate the fish supper, I had to consume more water than Nemo! 

All of this coincided with having just watched our Parish Mass on Facebook, and reflecting on some comments I had received from well-wishers. 

The joy of seeing the choir reminded me of a source of on-going amusement from certain choir members regarding my propensity for mentioning food and drink during my sermons. 

Those members may wish to stop reading now. Alternatively, they may wish to get out their 'Father Robert Food & Drink Bingo Card', and start dabbing…(!)

Since being in hospital—and apologies if I now sound like I am making an acceptance speech at the Oscars—I have been profoundly moved and humbled by the kind things people have said. Without tempting fate, I have heard things normally reserved for the time when I swap this small space for a much smaller wooden one with brass handles. 

Flowing out this kindness and love has come one of the classic philosophical questions, 'why did God allow something so bad to happen to someone so good?'

A priest hears this often, and we will all have our own ways of addressing the sincerity and pain of the question. What is different this time though, is that I am no longer a commentator or spectator, but very much on the pitch. 

Being honest, which has always been my aim in this blog, I have never really understood why there should be a presumption of divine protection. This is not because I happen to have a blind, unquestioning faith. Nor am I unaware of bible verses promising miraculous protection and intervention for 'God's people'. Rather, I think it is connected to what has gone into my stomach for many years as a child of God. 

What I have learned in the past month, to a much deeper level than I appreciated, is that food, and our engagement with it, reveals divine love in action. The formal name for this is Alimentary Theology, and perhaps the finest, certainly most beautiful exposition of it, is by Angel Mendez-Montoya in 'The Theology of Food: Engaging with the Eucharist' (2012). He says:

'... alimentary theology contains two indispensable elements: the element of God's desire to share divinity with humanity (through creation, time and space, the Incarnation, the cross, and resurrection, the Eucharist, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so on), and the believer's desire to unite with God in and through communal relationships'.

For me, it is the coming together of the human and the divine in the real world that, 'theologically' and 'experientially', gets me through the pain, tears, anger, frustration and unmerited love shown me.

Food and its sharing is visceral, messy, and joyful. It is given and received. Likewise, God is NOT 'hermetically sealed' and 'removed'. He gives, and sometimes I receive with thanks, or recently with tears. But the super-abundant unasked for love still comes whatever. It is comes in the reality of life.

I have no interest, and no desire, to serve a God who picks and chooses the beneficiaries of life and death like Caesar in the Coliseum; lest we forget, 'The sun shines on the unrighteous and righteous alike' (Matt 5.45). 

Personally, I now know the truth of that reality, and also that, in this Ascensiontide, Christ, who’s hands point to a future hope, and extend in blessing, bear the scars of the nails.

Sermon over, enjoy your meal and bon appetite my wonderful choir!