Of Food and Gods

 I have long maintained that if you know what a person eats, you know a lot about them. A fast food cheeseburger or homemade chicken salad? Chicken fried steak and a beer or a rib-eye with a glass of red wine? A vegetable-heavy meal or a meat-heavy one? Middle Eastern, French, Japanese—or always good old American food. My good friend Jim Lee once wrote that the foods we eat, the way we eat them, and the imagination we bestow upon their preparation will tell much about us to historians, folklorists and anthropologists of Buck Rogers’ twenty-fifth century.

In the same vein, I am reminded of Ellen deGeneris’ plea often seen on Facebook about not judging people by their sexual preference. “Can’t we just judge them by the car they drive?” With my VW Beetle convertible, I think I pass that test with flying colors.

But yesterday our senior minister, Larry Thomas, suggested another way of looking at and interpreting people. He said in divinity school, a professor had said, “Describe your God for me, and I’ll tell you how you treat your family, your neighbors, your colleagues, and your friends.” The statement made a big impact on me. He talked about many years ago asking that question of a couple in pre-marital counseling. The woman’s God was kind and loving and forgiving. The man’s God was sort of Zeus, a figure of great and perhaps indiscriminate power, waiting for someone to mis-step. Our minister said he knew if that man didn’t rethink God and come up with a new vision, the marriage was doomed.

On the way home, Jordan asked Jacob what his God looked like. His answer was that God is good, loving and kind but he went on to say that he lived in a huge building that is fifty stories tall, which of course, made me think of “In my Father’s house there are many rooms.” Jacob asked his mom, and she said, “Kind and loving, wrapping his arms around us,” and when I was asked, I added “fatherly and forgiving.” The discussion deteriorated a bit until I suggested we were suddenly talking about images of the North Wind rather than God. Strangely, none of us mentioned a sense of humor, but daily instances convince me God has one.

I know it’s a cliché that people think of God as a fatherly figure with a long white beard and flowing white robes, and that God can’t really be contained in any one image. But it’s an interesting thought that how you feel about God reveals what you feel about yourself and others.

I know a few people, not many thank goodness, to whom I could say, “I know what your God is like.” Authoritarian. Vengeful. Angry.

Most of us leave little record of how we see God. We are more likely to leave a record of what we eat. Hmmm, wonder what twenty-fifth-century historians will make of German potato salad with hot dogs and corn?

An old friend came to visit

My old friend, anxiety, came to visit yesterday. There’s no one reason for these visits, and I’ve stopped trying to figure a pattern. It may be weather, a new experience facing me, an extra sip of wine the night before—who knows? All my doctor says is “You’re not wired like most people.” I used to be ashamed of my anxiety and try to hide it, but these days I know that it’s the most common mental illness in our country, affecting some 40 million adults to varying degrees. Generalized anxiety disorder, which I think fits me, affects 6.8 million adults. No, I didn’t have panic attacks yesterday—though I’ve had my share of those—but I went through the day with a general sense of uneasiness, shaking hands, heart occasionally pounding, especially at one point when I felt dumped on by a lot of work having to do with the cousin in Canada I care for when I really had other things to get to.

I did everything on my schedule—took my car for repairs and came home in a loaner (that in itself enough to cause anxiety—driving an unfamiliar car), had a pleasant lunch with a good friend, picked Jacob up and sent him off to neighbors’ for a play date, and fixed dinner for four adults and Jacob—good food I might add (marinated pork tenderloin, twice baked potatoes, and salad). By evening, with a couple of glasses of wine, I was more relaxed.

But in a way an anxiety day is like a day with a migraine—the next day you have a hangover, a vague sense that the uneasiness is out there and might return. But once again, I functioned like a normal person (hey! In most respects I am)—went to the vet, the post office, and the grocery, exchanging happy banter with all I came in contact with.

When I wake in the morning with that vague sense all is not right with my world, my dog is my biggest comfort. My New York relatives years ago had a cat they named Anxiety; I wouldn’t say by any means my dog should be named Tranquility. She’s smart enough (half poodle, half border collie) but not calm enough to be a service dog—yesterday she tore through the house all evening because Jordan had brought their two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Sophie thought the idea of playmates was wonderful; they on the other hand were appalled by her bold and blatant attempts to play (she weighs at least twice as much as they do and maybe more and is much more active).

But in the late evening and early morning, Sophie and I have little love sessions—we sit on the floor, she quiet and calm, and I pet her and talk to her and tell her how wonderful she is. She in turn gives me a few face licks or earnestly washes my hand. Those morning sessions kind of anchor me in the world and assure me that all is in its place.

It’s time for me to stay home a bit, get my bearings, and then leap back into the world. The good thing about anxiety—at least for me—is that it’s always a passing thing. In a day or so, I’ll wake up thinking what a wonderful world I live in.