A fairly new friend of mine was explaining the reasons for Eastern Orthodox Christians starting advent early and other sundry things this morning. He mentioned fasting. Growing up Baptist, I don't remember learning or hearing much about fasting. Being pretty fundamental, most things were sin except for eating (well, not the gluttony part) so we did that...alot. There wasn't alot of talk about dietary restrictions either. Except for one.
In the school cafeteria at Travis Elementary, Friday was always fish stick day. The Catholic kids couldn't eat meat so we all got fish sticks. Everybody ate them, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Methodists, even Johnny Bedri, the lone Jewish boy in my class. I don't recall thinking much about it. We knew we had them because of the Catholic kids, but it was just the way things were. There wasn't anyone complaining about all the fish sticks or why we ate them or whether or not God was happy/unhappy with the arrangement. We just did it.
Were we politically correct in our tolerance of eating fish sticks? Were we pushing one religion's meat ban down every little WASP throat? Were we incorrect because we allowed the obvious mixing of church and state in school cafeterias? I think we just did it to get along. It's a shame we can't do that today. We seem to tolerate everything but common sense when it comes to the things of God. And may God help us if we kick Him any further to the curb in our schools. We'll be lucky to get fish sticks!!
1 comment:
Well put. And as it turns out, in general, at least, fish is very nutritious. Also for the soul, and for the brain too.
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