As the end approaches, I think things have a chance to become clearer. I’m talking about both the small and big endings – the end of a day, the end of a season – winter becoming spring, the end of a relationship, the end of a life, the end of an era, the end of innocence, the end of organic foods, the end of suffering. I could go on for eternity about endings, because they are literally endless. Everything has its innate limitations. Each of us contains within each of us our ending. Traditionally in Western culture, this kind of talk was seen as morbid and pretty depressing. But that’s slowly changing.
There is more willingness than ever to talk about endings – engaging these unavoidable truths with care, community, even dessert. You may have heard about death cafes. These are pop up cafes that are all over the U.S – some in people’s homes, some in churches like this – where over the comfort of dessert and coffee, people can come together and talk frankly about their death, and their relationship with it. It is open to everyone, and it’s attracted all ages, and all levels of health.
Some attend who are given a critical diagnosis, some are elderly, some are middle aged, some are young. Endings don’t discriminate – they can happen at any time to any of us.
I think it’s smart they offer coffee and dessert. It’s probably for the same reason we offer coffee and dessert after services downstairs. Whatever happens in the service – whatever you may feel about the sermon, the hymns, whatever mood you’re in. It doesn’t matter – there’s coffee and dessert and friends waiting for you downstairs. When I was interviewing, a congregation asked me what my favorite part of church was. I told them – coffee hour. It’s at coffee hour where we see the real spirit of the congregation – we see the fruit of our activities and our lives. Yes, it can be awkward at first, especially if you’re new. But even that kind of awkwardness proves there is something at stake – a vulnerability and intimacy that’s possible. This doesn’t always come through deep conversation, though it certainly can. I think it’s powerful to come together no matter what is going on in the world and eat dessert and drink coffee.
It’s one of our most brilliant adaptations as a species. We’re sending each other the message whether we’re aware of it or not – there’s some sweetness in the world. I think this is why the death cafes serve dessert and coffee – we are learning we can face endings without bitterness.
One could argue that is the whole purpose of religion, when you get down to it – learning to face endings without bitterness. For ministers, it’s often called the final exam. Your death and your relationship to it is a testament to the kind of religion you really have. No pressure. I don’t think the point of this is to say that it is better to have a serene and calm death, or to have a faith that is unshakable all the way to the end. That sounds completely misguided and unreasonable to me. I do believe in the statement to a certain extent that “we die how we live.” Not in terms of circumstances, but in attitude, our general experience. Well, I don’t know about you but I’ve found life to be unpredictable, confusing, sometimes really hard, sometimes a real joy. My life was never been one certain way – it’s been changeable.
I think this is what is most scary about endings. We can’t really predict them. We don’t know how we’ll feel and how we’ll respond. We just know it’s coming someday.
I think there is something about food that is so important to all of this. I met with a woman in New York who was on hospice care, and I asked her if there was anything she missed. She immediately responded – eating food. She was on a liquid diet, and was unable to chew and swallow. She said – I dream about pastrami sandwiches. Just being able to take one more bite.
Food is really important – not just for our bodies. It’s important for our spirits. Every culture knows that. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Italian, Indian, Jewish, Hispanic – the message gets communicated – food is love.
Food is love and it’s complicated. Sometimes your tastes change over time. You learn about the origins of foods and you have ethical concerns. Sometimes food feels tied to a certain ideology. The image of Campbell’s tomato soup is part of the American consciousness.
It’s come to be a symbol painted by Andy Warhol – sold to our families, sold by our government, sold by our sports heroes, introduced back to us through our children and grandchildren. I love tracing the poet Bobby Byrd’s autobiography through Campbell’s Tomato soup. It wasn’t even very good soup, but it meant something powerful for him, often negative. That negativity can be so pronounced that it turns us off, and prevent us from savoring it. It literally turns our stomachs. A simple food can cause us to question the tenants of government and moral order, and it can provoke us to see death much more than we see life. It can be a symbol of endings. That is what I find beautiful about the poem – it begins with innocence and a taking for granted of mediocre soup. Then it becomes loaded and unappetizing – linked to war and greed. And by the end, he’s an old man watching the innocence of his grandson who offers him to join him in eating the food he’s grown to detest. And he gives in. It’s not because he’s changed his political opinions or that’s he’s somehow forgiven anybody.
He eats it because it’s finally just soup again – that’s all it is. Middle of the road, mediocre soup. And tasting that mediocre soup tastes like freedom – freedom from decades of pain.
My father didn’t enjoy savoring most foods. He had a very limited and consistent taste palate – meat, bread, peanut butter, soda, and nearly all desserts. When he would order a hamburger, he hated any kind of vegetable or condiment. He would give them the same order – I’ll take my burger plain, nothing on it. One time they just gave him two buns. He detested ketchup. I would hope sometimes that they messed up his order, because if it had any kind of condiment, I knew he couldn’t eat it. He’d give it to me. Some people called him a picky eater, but I like the term discerning eater. He was a discerning eater. Whereas
my mother and I would eat most things, he was a bit more discerning. I’ve wondered what it must have been like to have such specific tastes and aversions to certain foods. It probably felt both comforting and anxiety producing. It’s comforting to know what you like, but anxiety producing to think that other people may not be able to give you what you like.
Beyond the context of food, I think most of us feel this way about life to a greater or lesser extent. We know what we like, and those things are comforting. But we’re always worried we’re going to get something we don’t like. It can be tempting to fall into the common human trap of working tirelessly to experience as much pleasure as possible, and to avoid as much pain as we can. On the surface, this looks like common sense. Of course we want to feel good and don’t want to feel bad. But in practice it leads to a limited life, a life of constant fear and anxiety – fear we may lose comfort and have to experience what we don’t want.
It’s why I love relating to individuals. Each of us is particular and contains limitations, thresholds. It’s just part of us. We each contain particular fears and particular hopes, and the more you really know someone, you see this particularity. Nobody is quite like someone else.
For me this is what it means to savor – to notice things like that. To notice what makes someone or some situation absolutely unique and incredible. Savor is connected to appreciation. I thought for years that I could only appreciate things or people I liked.
I thought appreciation was synonymous with liking. I thought I could appreciate within my range of taste. I was wrong. To appreciate is to recognize the full worth and implication of any given situation. To recognize the full worth and implication. There is no limitation to this.
It can be very difficult to do sometimes, true, but I think it’s worth it. It can be tempting to avoid things or people that we don’t like, probably most especially in our families. But even if we feel it is wise to keep our distance, we don’t have to stop appreciating. With appreciation comes understanding. I appreciate both my parents very much. I definitely didn’t like everything they did – but appreciation does not need to be limited by my likes and dislikes. This does not mean if you appreciate you are forced to forgive or enable. It just means you allow yourself to see more of the picture – to recognize the full worth and implication of someone.
I think this is so important in our political climate. There is so much splitting that is happening not just among different political parties but within the parties themselves. I don’t think this kind of splitting can be helped, but I do think this is the time for appreciation – To really see the value and understand the full implication of an individual and of a society.
This gives direction to our struggles, and it allows us to wed passion with calm. Right now there is lots of passion – feverish passion. This passion needs to be sustained over time, and this can only happen with appreciation – appreciation of everyone in the situation were in – a situation of environmental and political crisis. There is a lot at stake, and most of you know this. Perhaps it’s why you’re here. You may feel moved to either go out there and go change the world. And this can be positive. Or you may feel so overwhelmed and oversaturated that you’re taking a fast from Facebook and anything to do with politics or news. This also can be positive. No matter where you are on the spectrum, I think it begins and ends with appreciation. Appreciation for our own limitations, appreciation for the persons next to us, appreciation for the people in the pew you’re in, appreciation for everyone in this room. The hope is we can carry that appreciation out into the world.
The situation of being alive and having to die is pretty brutal. We’re all hanging off the cliff being chased by tigers. And we don’t know when our time will come. It’s okay to appreciate this moment while we have it. It’s okay to taste the fruit, to taste the dessert, to taste the reality of our life and the life of another, and in the face of death, say yum.
