tarts and towers

I just finished possibly the best pecan tart I have ever eaten. It was crumbly, but it was oh so delectable. Yesterday night I went downstairs to cook a late supper, settling on my usual fare - microwaved hot dogs on bread with a cheese slice. Upon entering the kitchen, I noticed that on the stove-top were a fantastic-looking pie with crumble on top, which I found out later to be peach pie, and a pan of melt-in-your-mouth pecan butter tarts.

Now, I would like you to get a glimpse of how much I like butter tarts. Years ago I decided it was a prerequisite that the woman I was to marry had to know how to make butter tarts. That's how much I like butter tarts. Since then, reason has poked its hideous little head into the play-pen of my mind and has pointed out that perhaps this is a superficial and idiotic prerequisite to have, so I have dropped it as a requirement.

Anyway, so I was there nuking my very unhealthy dinner in the microwave, and Trina comes upstairs to check on her baking, which is still hot. I commented on how wonderful her baking looks, and she said that she'd leave one out for me when they cooled off (the one, in fact, that I ate just before sitting down to write).

The microwave finished and I opened the door. Oh no. Once again, I had managed to shrivel the weiners to the point that they were no longer recognizable. Suddenly I was hit by the contrast. Trina was telling me how her dad was quite the baker, and that she had a gift for being able to just throw things in a pan and they'd turn out wonderfully, and here I was a horrible failure at even warming a couple of hot dogs.

I made sure the door didn't fly open all the way, hoping that somehow she wouldn't be able to see what a mess I had made of such a simple operation. It was embarrassing. Then she went to the fridge, and I'm pretty sure she saw the full extent of the damage. Thankfully she didn't point out my absolute ineptitude at all things culinary.

I was once again confronted with the fact that I'll never be as good as some people at some things. I will especially never likely be the best at anything. To go further, in less than a couple hundred years my name in this world will likely be no more than a hard-to-find byte deep in the neglected annuls of cyberspace, because the people who are remembered are those who were the best at what they did.

There are a few ways of trying to overcome our own insignificance and ineptitude, and they always involve an other. When Trina gave me a pecan tart, my ineptitude at making such tasty treats was no longer a concern, because she had filled that lack for me. Even better has been the way Darcie has encouraged me to learn to cook, even bringing over ingredients and helping me through the process. Today she reaped the benefits of the tutelage, as community always does from such encouragement, because I cooked and froze quite a bit of spaghetti and made some for her and I for supper.

In coming alongside me, encouraging me by her example, and helping me know that I could accomplish this myself, there is no longer a need there that I cannot fill. "Feed a man a fish..." the saying goes. It is only in community that any one of us has significance, that any one of us can conquer our inadequacies. Either it is in others doing for us, or it is in them encouraging and enabling us to overcome obstacles ourselves.

It was this strength mis-directed that caused God to scatter and confuse the people at Babel. Like each one of us, they wanted to be remembered and to make a name for themselves (Gen 11:4). Like Adam and Eve, they went further and strove to be like God and to reach to the heavens (4), which, were it to be possible, would eliminate the possibility of the true God, for there is only One. When the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, he observes that as one people speaking the same language, "nothing they plan to be will be impossible for them" (6).

I don't think that the problem is in their unity or in the strength therein. In fact, this is what Jesus longs for in his followers, that we be one as he and the Father are one. The problem is that they were not also in God (John 17:21) in their desire to reach into his dwelling and snatch him from his rightful throne. Even if those at Babel had eliminated the impossible and had accomplished everything here on earth, they would not have made a name for themselves in heaven, because the only names that matter in eternity are those written in the Lamb's book of life (Luke 10:20). It is only through His gift to us that we have significance in this world. He was the only one who could successfully go through the fires of hell and come out perfected. At the same time, He not only does for us what we cannot do, but He gives us the power to accomplish the inconceivable; to choose to become children of God.

His gift is grace, His strength is faith. 

We do not only receive the gift, but we are given the power to choose it for ourselves. We do not only receive the pecan tart we are unable to make, but we are enabled to make it ourselves. Indeed, it is a paradox, because we are unable to accomplish this for ourselves, but in receiving the gift we are also simultaneously given the strength to accomplish what we are unable to do. Praise God that the gates of hell cannot prevail against us who are united by Christ as one people, a chosen priesthood and a holy nation, speaking the one language of the Spirit and being found in God Himself. There is nothing that is impossible for us who are in complete unity in the Lord. Like Abraham and Joseph, He will bless everything we do as it is done in Him. Praise the One who is the Gift, the Giver, and the One who enables us to receive Himself. He gave it all, but in giving it all He has adopted us as Sons of God whose names are written in the only history book that matters: the Book of Life. Through Him and in Him we have attained an eternal remembrance that cannot be marred by our temporary ineptitude, failure, and inability to achieve anything truly creative, new, or remarkable on our own. In Him we bear His name and His glory in being the only Creator. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain!