on food

I had a revelation today. About food. The entire last week has focused around food, and suddenly today I'm understanding why, and what I have been meant to learn.

To summarize the week: due to some post-surgical setbacks I had this week, we had to switch Moriah from breast milk to formula mid-week, unexpectedly and suddenly. I was not happy with this switch--it has been a painful grieving process, actually--and Moriah's bout with reflux shows that she may not be entirely happy about it, either. It's no fun when the doctors tell you to watch for signs of heart failure (they want to do the surgery before her heart fails, to which you feel like saying sarcastically, "Oh, duh, really?!"), and these signs include vomitting and gasping for air, both of which she does when she throws up formula. So every time she throws up, a dread rises--is this heart failure, or formula intolerance?

Sigh.

So our entire week, and much of this coming week, is about food. When to feed her. How much. How often to take breaks. How to keep her sitting up as she eats. How long to leave her sitting up after she eats. To the ER to get a doctor's opinion. To the pedi to get a second opinion. To the hospital for an ultrasound. To a GI clinic this week. Back for another ultrasound (end of this coming week). Debates around soy versus cow's milk. And in the meantime, a tired mom who just wants to feed her baby herself and cannot and is taking some medication that makes her feel like...well, I'll let you fill in the blank there.

So back to the learning part. I was reading a magazine we get at home, and they had some thoughts about this month's readings (as prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer)--mostly on John's Gospel and Jesus' teaching on food. On himself, and the spiritual life, as a feeding-life (Jesus often talks about himself as "bread" and invites all to his dinner party of a spiritual life). The writers of the magazine were recalling the Israelites who, after leaving Egypt, grumble and complain that they want to go back (the journey to their new homeland too long and unsure, they'd rather return to slavery); there, they "at least had bread to eat." The writer was pointing out how often we are like that, how often we accept the "quick and easy" in our lives and in our spirituality rather than taking the longer road, the more authentic path, (and, as I interpreted the text) even the way of suffering. We'd rather be sure to count on our next meal; we want security and the known, even if it means we are not free.

I thought immediately of Moriah. It's so much easier for her, actually, to take the bottle--it's quicker, and more immediately satisfying. She doesn't have to work as hard for a gulp of milk. And yet, and yet, she has preferred, over and over, to take breastmilk when she can get it. I'm not sure if I will be able to offer it anymore to her, but her persistence has really touched me in the last weeks, and this week especially, when the feeding has been so hard.

Moriah's name also means "teaching place" (Mount Moriah being the "teaching place" for Abraham, and the mountain on which the Temple was built as the center of teaching for Jews). This week, after all the tears and frustration and grief, I am accepting her teaching as this: whenever possible, choose the best "food" in life. There is good, and it is easy and immediate. And then there is best, and it is difficult, and maybe more scarce, and harder to find, and requires more of our energies.

"This is a hard teaching," Jesus' disciples said to him after he invited them to "eat" of him, and to follow him on the suffering-way. "Who can accept it?"

Moriah's struggle this week (and she is still struggling today, still throwing up too frequently) challenges me to eat in the way that she does--in complete surrender, arms flailing wide open and mouth always asking for more of the best stuff. She models for me an ultimate act of trust, that God's arms, cradling me, are strong and loving. I'm trying to learn what Moriah already knows--in these arms I will have all I need. The way may be difficult, and even cause upset, but it is the way of provision, and I can trust it's the way of Love.