To Eat Or Not To Eat; That's Half The Question

I finally got to get the girlfriend chair out tonight. It was delightful this evening with a clear gorgeous sunset, warm temperatures, and no wind. I do virtual all my own automotive work and tonight I wanted to get a new front brake caliper on the truck. I had noticed that that hub was a little warm after getting back from Escanaba the other week and, while I had assumed it was wheel bearings, found out after getting the bearings and starting to replace them that the caliper slides were totally hung up and it was actually the unreleasing brake that was generating the heat (well, actually the friction which produced the heat).

Anyway, when I work on vehicles, especially in the evening, Jen comes outside with her knitting and sits nearby and works on her projects while I bang away. We have a lawn chair that gets moved around for her to sit on and I call it the girlfriend chair since it always reminds me of the quintessential high school sweetheart image of the teenage boy earnestly flailing away at pistons, tires, trannys, or whatever while his girlfriend hangs out checking her nails, chewing gum, and spending unbelievable amounts of time waiting for him to finish. Sometimes I think the patience of 17 year old girlfriends could put us all to shame. Either that or they waste an amazing amount of time on guys more interested in cars than girls ...

The thing on my mind is actually kind of a sad story. Some friends of ours were invited to another couple's house last Friday. The invitees were Catholic, the invitors not. Without thinking about it (indeed, probably without even knowing it was an issue), the hosts made a dinner including porter-house steaks on the grill. Our friends who were invited turned down the meat as inappropriate to their religious observance. They told us later of this fact with some pride.

I struggled with how to respond to the story, and I have no idea whether I handled it well or not. But what I am sure of is this; their refusal was poorly done, poorly done indeed (extra credit points if you pick up the movie reference in that last sentence). It seems that religion will regularly be used to stunt relationship.

The thing that hit me most directly, was that Paul talks about almost this exact situation (invertedly). In Romans 14 Paul discusses the risk of using food to usurp God's work and mentions the eating of meat as one example. There was something about the story we were told that really made me understand how good Satan's twisting skill can be.

In the end, I don't think much was accomplished in terms of helping the burgeoning friendship thus challenged. I know that what was chosen was chosen for the pride of being religiously steadfast. Nothing wrong with that but it came at the expense of their hosts and there is something wrong with that. I also know that it would have been wrong to have arbitrarily blown past their accepted obligation with some breezy sense of total freedom. Our commitments are serious but not ultimates. It was an incredibly poignant reminder that the attitude of the heart makes all the difference in our actions. No act, in and of itself, is right or wrong but the context of our motivations breathes morality into the skeletal act and gives it moral life.