Eclectic, quirky, and sometimes edgy…this is how things look from my front porch.




Saturday, November 5, 2011

Dry Like Toast

Okay, so I know that you didn't expect this kind of picture.  You think I should have imported some picture of toast, perhaps slightly burned, for this post, right? Well, as my friend Varelly Margarita Blandon y Jarquin used to say, "hold on, boogaloo."

One of my favorite movies (along with To Have and Have Not, Moonstruck, and Hunt for Red October, among others) is My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  If you're like the one person in North America who hasn't seen it, this is the story of a loving, enmeshed Greek family's reaction to their beloved daughter's marriage to a non-Greek vegetarian WASP.  At one point the father, who is bewildered and frustrated by his daughter's love for this man emotes saying, "His whole family is dry...like toast....Toast People.  No honeys (sic), no  jam, no marmalade, just dry like toast."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wMu4I_GaE

My friends, I have been dry like toast spiritually.  No honeys, no jam, no marmalade...I have been one of the toast people.  Well, as Kostas, the father says in the clip, "This no work!"

King David knew that this "no work," too.  When he wandered in the desert of Judah he said:

Psalm 63

A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.
1O GOD, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is (Amplified version).

See, David knew that he was a toast person, too.   This is encouraging for those of us who struggle with our feelings during the "dry times."  David has hand-picked by God.  The Bible says so.  He was a "man after God's own heart" even in the midst of many terrible trials and mistakes and out-and-out deliberate disobedience.

But you know what?  David goes on to say this later on in this psalm:

On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.

I have thought a lot about God during the "watches of the night," but I haven't been singing too much in the shadow of His wings, if you know what I mean.  Psalm 91, another favorite says:

Psalm 91

1HE WHO [a]dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty (Amplified version).

This weekend, I plan to stay under the shadow of His Almighty wings and eat some jam.  Or Simply Fruit maybe, less impact on the blood sugar.