breakfast
This morning, I feel the outer crumbling, how slowly I waste away–not me, but the shell of me; the me you would recognize; the me you could touch, at least while we’re here. A cellular avalanche starts the moment our bodies begin to breathe; but breathe God and the opposite happens too. The resurrected body, once born, only grows; only continually bears its abundant fruit, the leaves never withering; only more and more and more life. Glory unto glory, God says. Inwardly, we are being re-newed, made new and new and new yet again, every day. There’s nothing everyday about that kind of every day. I let that simmer: This morning, right now, I’m new. This crumbling only happens on the outside. I walk downstairs, noticing the soreness in my feet, my thighs, that place that burns sometimes at the top of my spine. But the routine absorbs me, thoughts of coffee–especially coffee, steaming–and breakfast and the short list of what must be done before I sit down in the lap of God and wake up. That notice of what wastes away, I let it go. But Kevin, he sees me–all of me, not just this body where for now I live, and at the bottom of the stairs, he gently touches my arm.
“Why don’t you sit down and let me make breakfast this morning,” he suggests lightly, just that and nothing more, because we have learned each other; we know how to communicate with few words. We usually make breakfast in tandem; he always makes the coffee and puts a mug in my hands, and I gather up the other stuff, at least on the weekdays. But this morning, he offers me this small reprieve from the usual. He says, let me love you. He says, let me remind you of everything true. And once again, God shows me that my usual isn’t the usual at all.
“Okay,” I say, smiling back, because even though I am completely undeserving of the gift–But isn’t that the truth of grace; of gifts, that we can’t earn them somehow?–I’ve learned that receiving love is part of loving. Love and grace breathe life into dry bones–mine and his. “Thank you,” I say, tilting up on my tiptoes to give him a kiss before turning toward my favorite chair and the refuge of a blanket. Love covers over me.
In a few moments, Kevin returns to me with coffee, and then I hardly think about the sounds–his feet moving over the linoleum floor, the clang of pans as Kevin pulls one out of the mountain Adam makes when Adam dries dishes and puts them away. The smell of bacon draws me back to recognition, and I realize Kevin hasn’t taken the easy way, as I might have done. He said, “Why don’t you let me make breakfast,” and he meant make breakfast, not gather it quickly the way we usually do on weekdays. I hear the scrape of the spatula against the pan as he flips eggs. He has sacrificed his own slow waking to serve me.
He makes me remember: Jesus made breakfast for his disciples after his resurrection. The first breakfast, a teacher once labeled it, a less well known follow-up to the Last Supper, on a morning when everything was new. Upheaval had sent the disciples back to fishing, and they sailed back after an empty night to find Jesus cooking their breakfast on the beach–fish and toast, baked on an open fire. It’s a striking story–the risen King, the conqueror of sin and death, making breakfast for a bunch of fishermen. Even when we strike out; he’ll not leave us hungry. The way Jesus the King spent his last days on earth is not the stuff of myth, and it’s not all that different from what he does now. He spent time with a lot of confused people, helping them understand; he restored people who had betrayed him; serving, he made breakfast. It’s as though the resurrection only granted Jesus the freedom to do more of what he loves to do, not to flaunt power but to use it to love people. There’s a crazy passage–crazy not for Jesus but for how-could-I-let-you-wash-my-feet me, that says one day, when the master returns, he’ll dress himself to serve, call all his servants to the table, and come and wait on them (Luke 12:37). I have a friend who loves to feed people who says that every meal points to that one. I think that’s part of why Jesus gave us communion to remember; and maybe that’s why He told Peter to feed his sheep. I think maybe that’s why, this morning, my husband is making me breakfast; because that’s the sort of thing Jesus loves to do.
I smile, caught up suddenly in the knowledge of the God who revealed the fullness of himself in a man; who made human beings in his own image; who surrounds us all our lives with living, breathing moons. My husband, my children, they live love and tell me the truth. They put on Christ and wear Him like a robe. I feel like Peter when Jesus knelt to wash his feet, like I always do when again I receive the truth of Christ–awed, elated, humbled, relieved, like I’m taking my first breath. On the inside, I’m all new. Again.
Kevin puts a plate in my hands now–salty bacon, sunny eggs, the plump, bright curve of an orange, more than enough to fill me.
