took and mixed in with three measures of flour until
all of it was leavened." Matthew 13:33
From the February/March 2007 Issue
God of Delicious Detail
Pat Livingston
Pat Livingston, the author of Letting in the Light and This Blessed Mess (both from Ave Maria Press), lives in Tampa, Florida. She has been a Leaven fan ever since she spoke in our Lenten Lecture series several years ago.
“Bidden or not bidden, God is here.” This quotation, which was carved over the doorway of Carl Jung’s house, sometimes helps me name an experience. I was intrigued to read it in Leaven, just after such a happening.
Before telling the story, I want to offer a context I love from something I once saw a couple of rows in front of me in church. A boy about 4, a living squirm, was at Mass with his father. He had looked at all the books, eaten all the Cheerios, and was starting to kick the pew in front of them. His dad said, “Timmy, please be still, pay attention, something very important is happening now. The priest is about to turn the bread and wine into Jesus.” The kid froze in mid kick, eyes riveted on the altar. Moments later, in the silence that followed the Consecration, the boy’s clear voice was heard protesting, “But Dad….. it didn’t work!”
There are times in life when the Consecration doesn’t seem to work. God has been bidden, but God doesn’t show up in the way we expect. A recent experience for me was such a No-Show. Then not long after it, unbidden, came a moment of salvation.
The originally planned event was a family Christmas gathering. Lots of preparation had gone into the coming together of my children and their children. I would celebrate with all 15 in the two generations on my son Randy’s land out in the country in central Florida. Two years before, the eye of Hurricane Charlie had come roaring through the property and snapped a whole row of huge trees in half. For this Christmas celebration, we would set up our long table near those trees which now have new growth sprouting from the broken places.
My husband and I drove over the night before to help with the preparations, all of us bidding God to come to our party at this holy time.
However, the gathering did not happen. The next morning one of the little families came down with stomach flu. Another of the families discovered head lice! No one protested the immediate cancellation…
After talking about re-scheduling we left for home, driving on country roads. We stopped after an hour and a half at a Burger King just before the road through a small town intersects with Interstate 75, the final leg of our journey. Getting out of the car I noticed a big bulge-- the size of a baseball -- on the side of the front tire. I gasped: it could blow at any time!
Half a mile from Interstate 75 we changed the tire, realizing that if the family gathering had happened we would have been driving home at night. After partaking in all the holiday dishes, we certainly wouldn’t have been stopping at Burger King. We would have been on that Interstate (on which more people drive 90 mph than 70 mph) on the edge of sudden death.
God had been bidden to the Christmas party. It didn’t work. God
showed up at Burger King. Unbidden. I am very happy to be alive to tell
the story.