Taste and Swallow
Reflections – week 5b
Welcome to the second half of week-five reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week five of eight.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.
Communion as Helplessness
Babies get spoon-fed. Adults with declining health get spoon-fed. Those who can feed themselves, feed themselves. Except at wedding receptions. Bride and groom hold out thin slices of cake for each other, while family and friends hold their breath—will it be romantically delicate, or smash-in-your-face fun? If they’re really brave, a couple will do the same with drinks. God bless them if they stain the wedding dress.
Holding a drink to another person’s mouth, or putting a bite of food on their tongue, is an intimate interaction. You’re participating in the entrance of a substance into another person’s body. The muscles in your hand and arm are ultra-focused, working in awkward tandem with another’s lips and tongue and throat.
In the Father’s House week 5 visualization, I’m invited to see myself at the table in Papa’s house, receiving communion from His hands.1 Imagine God Himself putting food in my mouth, holding drink to my lips, intimate, connected. This involves so much receiving, which I have never been good at. It involves not doing it on my own. Does God have time for such shenanigans?
As I swallow bread and drink, it occurs to me that tasting and swallowing are nearly the only bodily sensations I will experience with this food. After esophageal muscles carry the food to my stomach, it travels through my body unnoticed by me, yet is giving of itself for hours, sustaining my well-being. But over all this I have no control and very little awareness.
I wonder if my goodness—God’s gift to me—is this way. I hunger for belonging, rest, wholeness, so I open myself to receive. After tasting and swallowing, my mouth may return to neutral—no sensations—but a hundred things are happening inside me, producing life. Resting my hands in my lap and allowing God to feed me, trusting that I was made to receive, and trusting receiving to be life-giving and ongoing—maybe this will calm the hustle and quiet the perfectionism. Maybe being dependent will feel like peace, not prison. Maybe receiving as if I am helpless to do it myself will usher me in to abundance.
When I receive, I’m not generating something new. I’m depending on what already is. Swallowing is a surrender. I have invited something into my body, to become part of me. In the same way, receiving God’s goodness—my goodness—is a surrender to life. It’s not a structure I build brick by brick, but rather a piece of toast with butter and honey, sweet to the tongue, trusted to enter my body and do me good.
As Gregory Boyle says, “Then we stop being ‘spiritual,’ moving from here to there. Instead, we want to move from there to here.”2 God is inviting me to take up residence in myself and to taste my real life and allow it to nourish me. I am not trying to get somewhere so much as I am opening my mouth to partake.
I Declare
Father’s House encourages declarations—statements we can write down and speak aloud in order to internalize new ways of thinking. I’m not much for formulas, and I haven’t been practicing my declarations with any regularity, but writing them even once can be impactful. I had fun this week re-writing in my own words some of the scripture-based declarations from the book.
I am innocent.
I am powerful in my own self.
I live within the walled city of God’s love, my refuge and place of peace.
The greatest power in the universe is for me. All powers against me are lesser.
I am an abider.
I am whole, because this is Jesus’ gift to me.
I am alive. Good things flow through me.
I am an enjoyer of abundance.
God is never on the other side.
Jesus’ faith is my doorway out of law prison.
Slavery to the law falls off me like water off a duck’s back.
I am spirit-inhabited, married into the trinity.
My Papa is compassionate with me. Always.
Let Him Sing
Every week of Father’s House closes with a letter from Papa God, fresh with edibles for my hungry spirit. Excerpts from this week’s letter:
I am singing My promises over your soul. Let them wash over you and fill your mind and body with confidence.
All My Love, Abba Daddy.3
I am putting opportunities in your life to grow your trust and faith in Me. How do I do this? By giving you endless encounters with My goodness.
The prize of My promises is a relationship with me.
… practice the language of possibility! You’re learning to be content using a new muscle – the muscle of rest and trust.
As you wait on My response with a carefree heart… I am holding you in my perfect embrace.
Here’s to endless encounters with God’s goodness—bread and drink—and bulging muscles of rest and trust.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/girl-feeding-her-father-with-a-cake-4815325/
Endnotes:
1Father’s House, Session Five video visualization
2The Whole Language, page 84
3Father’s House, page 94
My Favorite Subject 