Do you seriously envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch's Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? Luther at least would turn over in his grave.

It is precisely because no one needs soup, fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever... Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls.

What are you going to do with your freedom?

If you take all your meals seriously, none of them gets a chance to matter.

Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in a hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance, and the elder brothers finally take their fingers out of their ears.

Grace cannot prevail...until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.

We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.