A Fool and his Salad

God is great.

God is good.

Let us thank him for our food.

That’s the first prayer I learned as a kid—or it’s the first I remember learning. I remember it, because It’s also the first prayer I misunderstood.

Lettuce, thank him for our food?

That never made sense. Why would we assign a roughage veggie to thank him? First off, why would lettuce thank him when it was getting eaten? It seems counter productive to me. Second off, why don’t we do it ourselves? Can we trust lettuce? What if the lettuce gets our thanks wrong? I mean sure, it’s got a head, but it’s green and leafy to the core. Not an impressive prayer delegate if you ask me.

“God, I have a head of lettuce here saying that the Boyd family is grateful for this years liver and onion surplus.”

“Great! they will have plenty more!”

No thanks. I’ll do my own praying—Even if I’m doing it wrong.

And trust me, I am. In all my years I’ve learned that wiser I think I am, the stupider I become. Right now, I’m a head of lettuce.

The next prayer I learned had nothing to do with lettuce, directly. It was another grace prayer, though. It came from my mom’s family. It sounded like this:

BlessusohlordandthesethygiftswhichweareabouttoreceivefromthybountythroughChristourlordamen.

This was accompanied with a fingertip cross-chest Macarena, and a fork flurry. It was my first utility prayer: quick and festive, aimed at moving through “thanks” and getting to food in a quick, orderly fashion. I think the auctioneer monks of St. Hasten created it.

After that, a few years would pass before Robby was introduced to any new prayers. Then came the Lord’s Prayer: Rob’s next chance at mutilating the intention of prayer. It was a weird one. Learning the words was simple, but comprehending them got more difficult each time I spoke it.

I remember a Sunday in my twenties. I sat in church. Our congregation didn’t have the “Grant me the cute girl, two pews up, and three seats over” litany. Instead, we had the Lord’s Prayer. As I’m saying, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” the words flowing from my mouth took root, and nearly ripped the hypocritical muscle from my mouth, like in one of those old Warner Brothers’ cartoons.

“Nu-uh! That’s not what I want!” I screamed from my station in the back of church. “Forgive me as I forgive others? You mean the same way I forgave Jimmy Swanson for sticking dirt in my sandwich? The same way I forgave Tammy Pintole for laughing at me in third grade? No, I’m hoping God’ll forgive me a touch better than that. Otherwise it’s just not quality forgiveness.”

Our prayer turned to a moment of silence, as the leaves between my ears made a core connection.

Ohhhh…

So I’m praying to forgive too? I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.

Still I tried. I mean, by twenty-five I’d done plenty that needed forgiving. If my current demeanor held, I’d need more than a nave full of worshipers to push me through the eye of that needle. If I wanted to be forgiven, then maybe it was time for a little Rob forgiving.

So I donned my favorite shoes, stopped trying to kick the ass of the unworthy, and moved my forgiving foot forward--and others stomped on it. When they weren’t stomping on it, I’d be pulling it from my mouth. The thing is, I did try, but there was another place I kept getting hung up. How far do I forgive? What’s the difference between being a forgiving person and being a foolish doormat?

That practice took more time to understand. I’m still not sure I have it down. I’ve just accepted that when in doubt, it’s better to err on the side of love. Sometimes it’s easier to hold a grudge than to let it go. It’s like our fists our locked in the clutch and can’t let go.

During my divorce, there was more than enough forgiveness to extinguish any of ire’s flames. We just refused to waste our valuable virtue on anyone unworthy the effort. In the end, pride did all the work for us…

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And isn’t that the heart of forgiveness lettuce? Pop that leafy globe against the counter and you’ll find a pride-less core. We’ve all been wronged, hurt, and betrayed—almost as often as we’ve wronged, hurt, and betrayed others.

Yeah, Jimmy and Tammy owe me one big salad for what they did all those years ago. You know what though? In the same breath I owe Chris, Dawn, and Billy quite a feast too, but forgiveness based on our own merits is one wilty salad indeed.

And that always leads me back to my beginnings:

God is great.

God is good.

Let us thank him for our food.

Amen.