Wednesday Wonder
The setting would be a familiar one for many people: a community banquet hall filled with round tables, all of which are littered with the requisite party favors and informational materials. The name tagged attendees mingled with one another on the way to their first course, the predictable salad.
During preliminary remarks the wait staff moved into their scripted positions, an army of tray-balancing gymnasts who bear what seem to be impossible loads for ordinary mortals. Like always I wonder how they do it.
But this time my wondering came to an end. Just as one energetic young man arrived at his destination and delicately lowered the tray from his shoulder, a great shift commenced. Several of the silver plate covers that had been obediently standing at attention on the tray somehow became dislodged from their columns and began to go rogue. The face of our server suddenly turned dark. The day of wrath had come and he knew it. There was nowhere to hide from the impending judgment. The tower of Babel was coming down whether humanity liked it or not.
As my seat was positioned near the scene of the great collapse, I reached as quickly as middle aged reflexes could to lend a steadying hand. But where does one reach? When a house of cards is experiencing structural failure, which card do you shore up? Evidentially the one I chose was good enough to temporarily hold back the tsunami of silver. But not entirely.
Riding on the tippy top of the pile was an orphan, an afterthought, a lone plate that looked like it just came along for the ride. It rode the crest like some free agent, weighing its options, deciding where it would go next according to available opportunities. The angle was such that, like a skier heading downhill, it plunged toward one particular chair. As a great mercy a woman, who just a moment before was occupying that very chair, moved up and out to exchange niceties with another guest across the room. That left the landing pad entirely open for an unencumbered approach, except, that is, for the woman’s very fashionable jacket and purse, resting on the chair, discreetly left behind to save her place.
Some of the worst things in life are just good things out of place. In other circumstances, like a Frisbee tournament for instance, the sailing of a disk through the air, banking and lifting and setting down, is a thing of great aerodynamic beauty. But that same thing of beauty, when relocated to a banquet hall, becomes something altogether different.
As the silver dome took flight, careening madly toward its target of accessories, it was as though time slowed. On final approach the plate turned perfectly upside down, ejecting its cover as it went, and the festive fare was generously distributed across both jacket and purse. The entrée was huge portion of oil sopped Lasagna.
The first reaction, of course, was shock: This couldn’t have happened. In short order the damage control unit arrived with their wet towels and apologies. Now what removes tomato sauce from silk?
It’s hard to extract a moral to this story, some eternal truth, or even a cautionary proverb. I’m not willing or inclined to make any claims about God’s will here. God may have been doing spaghetti someplace else that night. I sure won’t make a leap to punishment by lasagna.
It does reinforce the perception that a measure of chaos and randomness exists in a semi-orderly universe. Lasagna happens. Even flying lasagna happens.
What it certainly does do, on the most basic level, is remind us that every human action and reaction holds its hidden and unexpected consequences and that what is often least anticipated or desired is the very thing that will come to pass. Human goals and plans are fine, even necessary, but we are constantly reminded how easily they are scuttled. Pretense is smeared by Ricotta. Pride is splattered with Lasagna. Grandiose notions are kept in check by flying food.
Of course, there is no undoing of the past. What has been has been. The Lasagna has flown and landed.
Many things come to us as the direct consequence of our behavior and choices. Over that we have great ability to make different choices to secure different outcomes. But many other things are quite beyond our ability to determine or choose. They drop by our house uninvited. And then they are ours, desired or not.
Regardless of the way the lasagna flies, whether deserved or not, it is possible to take tragedy and transform it by the way we deal with it in the present. It takes a spiritual eye and heart to know and see that. But when we do, after long struggle, it is even possible to peep out a quiet thanksgiving for the mess that dropped on our chair.
Isn’t it time for the cheesecake?
