Once again upon the ponder

So it's been a couple of days, but we are now once again united to ponder loudly. This morning Pearl and I were reading in Job as we ate breakfast, quit the mess to eat and read at the same time, but it can be done, just don't look at the reader or you'll get a view of a mouthful of half-chewed soggy mush. We read Job 42 and at one point Job responds to God by saying,

"I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand - from my own eyes and ears! I'm sorry-forgive me. I'll never do that again, I promise! I'll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor."

Wow, what an image! Crusts of hearsay and crumbs of rumor, now that's a meal, crusts and crumbs, sounds dry, unappetizing, and moldy. But how often do I accept that over a fresh baked, oven hot, meal. In this realm of life, flesh blood, hair and skin, I'd never take crumbs and crusts over a fresh hot stromboli, but in the realm of the soul and the saints I often due with just left overs, or second hand truths, the meals of others, and not my own dinner. Job, upon realizing he had done this, refuses all future leftovers and asks for forgiveness, saying that he would never accept that again. Why, why forgiveness and never again. Because God doesn't what to be compared to the leftovers and crumbs, he doesn't what us to satisfy for day old love or revelations, God doesn't what to connect and enjoy us through someone else's meal, he wants to share a meal directly, to sit with me and eat, not me eat what he enjoyed with someone else. So, as I mechanically go to the fridge for a mircowaved meal of leftovers, may I remember a fresh meal is waiting and available if I'll only walk through the kitchen and to the dining room where God is sitting waiting to laugh and talk over a round of fresh mash potatoes and delicious roast beef.

Pondering loudly, who knows where this may lead