The Grace of Celebratory Flexibility

My plan was to undertake another culinary experiment for dinner this evening. I had all the ingredients I needed -- and had even completed a few steps in cooking. I was looking forward to creating a dish I thought would be delicious.

Then I picked Peter up from nursery school, the nursery school where he attended pre-kindergarten. Today was a momentous day, his last day at his old school before he starts kindergarten on Tuesday. Peter asked, "What are we having for dinner?" (He asks that question almost every day -- sometimes even before we eat breakfast. Yes, he truly is my son.) When I told him what I had planned, he balked. You see, Peter had another idea for a celebration on his last day at his nursery school: pizza. And more specifically, his idea was to get take-out pizza, not going out to eat or having pizza delivered.

Now remember, I already had dinner planned. I already had all the ingredients I needed. And I had already started the dinner preparations. And yet . . .

One of the guiding principles of Celebrate Every Day is that every meal can be a celebration. And since this was a special day for Peter, and he had an idea for how he wanted to celebrate, didn't it make sense to be flexible? After all, God is flexible with us. Certainly God's love for us is unchanging. Yet God is constantly flexible with us as we change course. This divine flexibility is one manifestation of God's grace.

So what better way to feed our souls on this momentous day in Peter's life than to be flexible and celebrate with pizza, as Peter wanted.

Kathleen will use the ingredients I intended for tonight's dinner in some form this weekend (in our home, I cook during the week, and Kathleen cooks on the weekends.) The culinary experiment will wait for another night.

This evening we nourished our souls as we dined alfresco, eating take-out pizza in our backyard.