Today’s Bread

My kids greet me at the school bus every day the same way: 'What's for dinner.'  Not a 'Hi, Daddy.’ ‘Good to see you Daddy.’ ‘I missed you Daddy.’  Nary a 'how was your day' in sight.  They're like gremlins: you've got to feed them a lot and at precise times or bad things happen. 

Years ago my father-in-law offered to pay my mortgage instead of having to feed my kids.  I laughed.  Turns out the joke was on me. 

'Do you even know what my mortgage payment is?,' I offered condescendingly.  'Son, you have no idea what your grocery bill will be', he countered knowingly.

Now my house is full of pre-teens that demand to be fed every day.  The nerve. 

And yet somehow I'm surprised each afternoon when the grand inquisition occurs.  It's as if supper snuck up on me like a foreign army pillaging a village, demanding cured meats and the finest mead. 

Back before quarantine when we lived beyond our walls, we had a weekly dinner at grandmas and grabbed a bag of deep fried goodness on the way home from ball practice.  Boom, two meals down.  We had to figure out what we were eating today based on the days events. 

Now, it's a daily grind.

There's no difference between the number of meals we eat.  I counted.  Yet there is a shift between today's bread and daily bread. 

Perhaps this is a subtlety suggested in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6 known as the Lord's Prayer (although I think the pre-scribed prayer was intended for us).  Jesus knew the necessity of answering the question of sustenance daily.  He knew the difference between 'today' and 'every day.'

'Every day' is made up of a lot of 'todays,' yet 'daily' suggests a length of time and commitment that 'leftovers' does not. 

Perhaps that's the point: our faith, like my children's appetites requires daily sustenance, enough for today, every day.

Now, who ate all the manna?