Perched Above the Water
My husband and I were invited to join a couple of good friends for dinner last week at The Signature Prime Steak and Seafood in downtown Honolulu. While I was excited to celebrate the two birthdays between us all, we were one day into Lent, and I was already dreading my decision to give up all alcohol for forty days and forty nights. There’d be some top-notch red wine to drink, but I knew if I made an exception here, I’d be sunk.
Signature sits on the top floor of a high rise — that “go-to” restaurant for special occasions, where the 180-degree view of the Pacific and the sun splashing into it at sunset is breathtaking. Even as we sat down, we were exalting in the view.
Our friends had arrived twenty minutes before us and were already digging into two appetizers: crab cakes and truffle fries. And there was that beautiful open bottle of red wine, tempting me. I turned away and quickly ordered a mocktail so I’d have something to raise for the birthday toast.
And then I started substituting for the missing wine, digging into the crab cakes and fries — mayonnaise, breading, salt, oils. I couldn’t stop myself from plucking more fries from the basket.
Then came the bread — glistening, round, puffy rolls sprinkled with sea salt. I started with half a bun, but couldn’t leave it at that and had two.
By the time we ordered, I was already full.
My French onion soup arrived blanketed with Swiss cheese and a buttery crouton. “Artery clogging!” I teased. But I dug in and just kept spooning.
My husband’s arugula salad came with the toppings arranged around the rim of the plate like a charcuterie board. He kept oo-ing and ah-ing over its “deconstructed” layout, building every forkful to his liking. I shared it with him.
Then came the ribeye steak — thick, juicy, accompanied by two bowls of buttery mashed potatoes that were “on the house”. By the time I was a few bites in, everything seemed to hit rock bottom in the pit of my stomach, and I felt… frighteningly full.
But the birthday Crème Brûlée — rounding out the meal — had to be tasted. Oomph.
We had begun the evening perched like songbirds gazing over the water.
By bedtime, I felt like I’d swallowed a boulder.
I tossed and turned and found no relief from my fullness.
The Desert and the Stones
Then a few days later, on the first Sunday of Lent, I took in the Gospel of Jesus in the desert at Mass.
After 40 days of fasting, He’s starving. And this is when the tempter strikes— in His weakness.
“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
— Matthew 4:3
Stones.
Cold. Hard. Lifeless.
Israel once wandered in a desert for forty years and received manna from heaven — bread they did not make, bread they could only receive.
Jesus refuses Satan’s command to turn stones into bread.
Instead, He says:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
— Matthew 4:4
And how can He say this — with hunger gnawing at Him?
Because the hunger is real.
And where Adam grasped, He refuses.
He does not need to turn stones into bread — He is the Bread come down from heaven.
A Lenten Turning
Lent marks our entrance into a penitential season.
And what is the point of the season, if not repentance?
To turn.
We fast.
We pray.
We give.
We loosen our grip on what we consume. We do not rush to fill the void with the next best thing — as I did that evening, substituting fries and everything else for wine.
The hinge, for me, is prayer — taking in more of the Word of God in place of the constant offerings of this world. Offerings that taste rich at first and feel heavy by nightfall.
It is the Word that orders our appetite.
It teaches us what to hunger for.
And when our hunger is rightly ordered, it lifts us — to higher ground — where charity and love prevail.
