This is the last month of my semester, a mad dash to the finish line.  This is the last month of writing papers, PhD prep, and event planning.  Every week I am completely certain that I won’t make it, but then something happens, some divine intervention, and I do.

It’s a strange experience to be more stressed than I’ve ever been, busier and more stretched, with less time to devote to friends and personal interest- all during the Great Fast.  The time when I consider how richly I’ve been cared for by my human community and how dependent I am on the people who produce what I eat.  It’s a time of asking forgiveness.  It’s a time to consider how to serve rather than consume.

In the consumer culture of wedding event planning, where the event and dress are all called “the one,” and little to no attention is given to the actual marriage, I am fasting.  I am praying to be a servant.  I am considering what it means to be dependent.  I am more aware now that I am almost bizarrely different, that the Orthodox Christian goals are radically different than general American goals.  Wedding planning is a case in point.

Our wedding budget is SO small.  And to have a small budget I think it takes a proportionate amount more planning.  But compensating for the lack of glitz, there is art!  Artsy invitations, artsy thank you’s, artsy decorations.  And jazz music.  And outdoor s’mores.

Every where in my stress I am finding signs of the divine.  I have a fiance who calls me from his bachelor party to say, “I love you.”  I have parents who are excited to see me and house me for 3 weeks before the wedding as we craft and assemble.  I have a mother who is flying to the big city to see me and drive back to Texas with me.  I have decade-long friends who text me just to say, “You can do it!”

And this afternoon when I am freaking out about my Greek midterm and an essay due tomorrow, I find gems of encouragement that I didn’t notice before.  My midterm is over John 6:25-35.  I don’t know how I didn’t meditate on this passage before, but it’s all about eating.  The crowds are asking Jesus for a sign because he just fed them. And he tells them, you’re not following me for signs but because you ate and were filled. Then in true Jesus fashion, he says some cryptic things that I didn’t stop to consider. He tells them not to work for food that decays, but for food that endures in eternal life.

And at the end of the passage he tells the people, ἐγὼ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς- I am the bread of life.  So I ask myself, what do I consume?  Do I consume things that decay or things that endure?  Do I eat the life-giving attitudes or the ones that bring separation or division or depression?  And how do I know what the life-giving food is? 

This is how I know-ὁ ἐρχόμενος πρὸς ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ πεινάσῃ, καὶ ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ οὐ μὴ διψήσει πώποτε. - “The one who comes to me will not thirst, and the one who believes in me will not hunger ever.” If I am consuming the right things, those things stop me from being a consumer.  They change me.  They take the selfish parts of me, the parts that use people and consume what I need first, and they change me into a servant.

When I take in the things in life that are good, holy, just, and oriented toward something deeper than my needs today, I find that I have less self-seeking motivations.  I find I actually want to give away what I have, considering the needs of others.  When I eat the bread of life, I just don’t get hungry for consumer-oriented things.  I don’t get thirsty for glory or ambition.  I find that I am satisfied at my core.