Feasting

The past week or so has been a time of feasting here in our neck of the woods.   Of course we very blessed in our household, and rarely lack for good things to eat, but Thanksgiving really is traditionally the beginning of several months of especially good food.  We've tried to cut back on making quite as many rich and sweet foods the past few years, but we still manage to eat quite well.

This year we had four of our children here for Thanksgiving dinner, along with significant others.   For many of them our four pm dinner was the second dinner of the day, so since I always tend to cook 3 to 4 times or more of what we actually can be expected to eat in one meal, we have had plenty of leftovers of turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberries and pie to feast upon all week long.   Add into the fact that most of the crew left town on Friday and my DH entered the hospital for observation and testing (nothing life threatening or anything), on Monday, that left plenty of leftovers to last the week.  Of course it isn't pleasant to repeat the same meal every single day of the week, so we added in pizza and burgers and sloppy joes and even some macaroni and cheese to liven things up a bit, topped off by an evening of KFC.  (No, I didn't do much cooking this week!)  DH also shared some of his tasty hospital food  . . . yes, it was tasty . . .  and I had some samples of shrimp, salmon, and tomato basil soup with grilled ham and cheese.   So I have been doing some great feasting of physical foods this week.  And though I won't be preparing masterful gourmet meals very often during the next month, I'm sure that we will not lack for good food every day.

This morning in our regular Sacrament Meeting worship service, one of our speakers reminded us of the importance of feasting upon the words of Christ.  Even though I might have done a better job of feasting on the scriptures during this busy past week, I have had some good moments of spiritual nourishment too.   I just happened to finish reading the book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon this week, including Jacob's recounting of the prophet Zeno's allegory of the tame and wild olive trees in chapters 5 and 6.   I'm sure I have read this section of scripture nearly 100 times, if not more, but for some reason it really resonated with me this week.  My synopsis cannot do the story true justice, but for those who may not be familiar with the story . . . The master of the vineyard, in an attempt to save his olive trees that are not producing good fruit, has his servant graft in in branches of wild olive trees, which for a time works, and the trees begin to produce good fruit.  Before long all of the trees again revert to producing bitter fruit, and the master despairs, but the servant does even more serious pruning and grafting from tame back to wild, and manages to get the trees to once again produce good fruit which is gathered and saved.   In the end, it is known that all the vineyard will be destroyed, but much good fruit is produced and saved due to their efforts.

What struck me this reading, was that it doesn't really matter if the trees were wild or tame to begin with, or even to end with, but that the wild grafts helped the tame, and the tame grafts helped the wild, and all at some point brought forth good fruit.  It doesn't really matter to the Lord if we are biologically of the house of Israel or adopted in through belief in Jesus Christ and covenanting to follow him.  What does matter is our fruits.  The results of our daily lives and actions.
"By their fruits ye shall know them."  Matthew 7:20

And, I also realized, possibly for the first time, that the recounting of this story immediately proceeded some of Jacob's final words to his people and to us, which includes one of my very favorite scriptures of all time: 

"O be wise, what can I say more?"   (Jacob 6:12)