Lessons in Lasagna
Last year, I made lasagna for my Bolivian family. It was everything a lasagna should be: seasoned hamburger, tomato sauce, mozerella, spinach, onions, garlic, and of course, noodles. Shortly after, my mamita decided that she would make a lasagna of her own. She made it according to my own recipe, but she decided to add raisins and olives. The integrity of the dish was slightly lost, but it still tasted like lasagna.
A few days ago, I came home for lunch/almuerzo and mamita said that there was lasagna in the oven. What I saw in the oven was not lasagna at all! It was only a vague memory of the one I had made over a year ago. It still had the noodles, but everything else was completely altered. There was no sauce, but there was a layer of egg. There was no spinach, but I think I saw peas and carrots...or maybe the orange pieces were the hardened cheddar that had been in the fridge for weeks. What lay on my plate was not lasagna at all, but an imposter, a casserole pretending to be something it was not. The original recipe had been lost and replaced with some foreign thing.
There was something to be learned from this "lasagna". I have been writing fluffy emails and funny (I hope) blogs about my life here in Bolivia. Truthfully, I think I punch out these hilarious happenings because I don´t want to be honest. It´s easier to laugh and be stupid then to tell you that my relationship with God is not what I´d like it to be. It´s not the alien dish that I ate a few days ago, but there is evidence of raisins and olives. Despite my daily discipline of reading the Word and journalling, I find that my prayer life is lacking integrity. I want to pray like a warrior doing battle. At times, I feel like the battlefield, trampled and covered in blood.
I suppose what I want to communicate is that although I am a full time worker for the Lord, it doesn´t mean that I always look the way the recipe dictates. I might look like a lasagna, but if you look closer you may find alterations in the ingredients. I never want to be the fraud that mamita prepared the other day, but forgive me if at some point, you see a raisin or two between my layers.
posted by FFG @ Saturday, November 12, 2005
4 comments
4 Comments:
Sometimes it's difficult to be completely open with your life when you are in ministry. Sometimes it would be nice to write out thoughts, relationship with God, etc... however, I think many times a lot of people just will not understand that you're a normal human being with struggles pertaining to your demographics, your gender, etc. Of course not everyone is like that, but working through these issues isn't easy.
It's easier to write about the raisins most of the time.
It´s not always easy to write about the raisins..unless I´m joking around about them...to paraphrase Joon from one of my favourite movies, raisins are humiliated grapes...and that´s what the raisins in my life do...keep me humble!
Good object lesson. All your Bolivian family has done is contextualized the ingredients. I find that is the ongoing stuggle that my friends in Central Asia deal with... maintaining the flavor of Jesus as we know and understand the Christian walk from a western point of view and yet being sensitive to the culture we are ministering to.
Some things are like the flavor of the lasagna; not all that important but others truly matter because the gospel is compromised. Then we have to drop an anchor and truly teach "WWJD". May the Lord give you the discernment to know those issues and the wisdom and patience to be able to make the Kingdom impact as you patiently serve Him. GB/DRH
"I want to pray like a warrior doing battle. At times, I feel like the battlefield, trampled and covered in blood."
How succinctly you put the struggle that so many of us face when we are honest before God and realize how short we come up.
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