Bulletproof coffee, Derits and other sacred foods

I’ve recently taken on a new spiritual discipline, that of fasting from dinner through to lunch the next day, with a cup of bulletproof coffee in the place of breakfast. Bulletproof coffee is the discovery of my daughter-in-law, through research on the internet. I respect her research; she’s discovered other seemingly weird stuff which has proven to be valid and extremely healthy (moringa trees, for example). Plus, recently recovered from several years of adrenal fatigue herself, she claims by personal experience that bulletproof coffee lives up to its claims.

Here’s how you make it: take a cup of good organic coffee, add one tablespoon of coconut oil (or a product like MCT) and one tablespoon of unsalted butter whose contributing cow ate grass, not grain, blend it until it froths, and drink.

I’m actually trying it. I believe in my daughter-in-law and her research; I’ve read the pro and con articles; and, most important, I really really want to believe. It claims to increase my energy and overall health at the same time it teaches my body to consume its own fats, thus causing me to lose weight. What’s not to want? So once again the believer and the skeptic within me have joined, and I’ve making a experiment that may last for a month or two.

I’m finally beyond the initial nausea stage and actually beginning to like the stuff. At least, a little. OK, a very little. So, it’s more of a discipline than a joy, which probably makes bulletproof coffee a sacred drink.

The Bible is full of sacred foods. Think of the bread on the Old Testament altar, as well as the sacred meats only the priests could eat. Think of mana in the wilderness. Think of the bread and wine that most of the Christian church uses to celebrate Christ’s sacrifice. We Quakers interpret that celebration in a different way, but we still consider shared meals as part of the sacramental nature of life. In addition all cultures seem to have their own sacred foods. This is part of life.

Perhaps some foods only pretend to be sacred (like bulletproof coffee?). Hal remembers a time in his childhood when his father had become persuaded that a certain snake-oil-like product was the secret to his family’s health. So he purchased several large boxes of Derits. Derits came in the form of large tablets meant to be eaten along with a meal, and not as a substitute for real food. But those were days of economic hardship for the family, and Derits were not cheap. So those semi-chocolate-flavored tablets, along with whatever else was on the table, were required fare. Hal didn’t especially like them.

The name Derit is tired, spelled backwards, and the product claimed to turn your fatigue around and fill you with energy and overall good health. To my future father-in-law, it was like a gift from God, part of the holy will for his family. Sacred food. They ate through all the cartons, but never purchased them again.

Reflecting back on the experience, Hal says he’s now convinced that, “A person could starve on Derits.”

Seasons have their own sacred foods. It’s Christmas time and I’ve got eggnog in the refrigerator. I intend to enjoy any fruitcake or fudge that others offer me.

I’ve recently added another item to my list of sacred foods. It works for all seasons. Once every two or three weeks, I relax my discipline of bulletproof coffee, and Hal and I walk to the Newberg Bakery for breakfast. I order fresh coffee made from organic Nicaraguan beans (with absolutely no extra oil or butter added) and a large frosted marionberry cinnamon roll. That’s the sacred part.

It’s one of the holiest moments of the month.

Beyond sacrament

The comments on last week’s blog lead me to the university library next door and one of my favorite books, The Oxford English Dictionary. The article on “sacrament” gave three root meanings of this word that has wiggled its way through Latin and French into the English language: 1) oath; 2) something holy, dedicated, set apart; and 3) mystery (this latter being the 3rd century translation of the Greek mysterium, mirrored in the Eastern Orthodox view of the sacraments). In reference to ecclesiology across denominations, the word has become “the common name for certain solemn ceremonies of the Christian church…belonging to the institutions of the Christian church.”

I even found a reference to the controversy between the words “sacrament” and “ordinance”: “By some of the English Puritans and Nonconformists, the word was avoided as being associated with opinions regarded by them as superstitious; the usual term applied by them to baptism and the Lord’s Supper was ordinance.”

The OED gives the wider connotation of the word as “something likened to the recognized sacraments, as having a sacred character or function; a sacred seal set upon some part of a man’s life”, “a sign of grace.” As an example of usage (I love how the OED does this!) the Book of Common Prayer is cited (1604):

“Q: What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
“A: I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us.”

In the same vein, the OED cites W.R. Inge (1899): “To the true mystic, life itself is a sacrament,” along with a reference to a 1921 English translation of De Caussades’ classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence and its concept “the sacrament of the present moment.” We Quakers would add a reference to Thomas Kelley’s A Testament of Devotion and our testimony to the sacramentality of life.

But as meaningful as these definitions are, they still don’t address the issue of Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance of me,” as pointed out by my conversation partners last week. While embracing the Quaker perspective, I struggle with this aspect. And I love it when I visit other faith communities and can participate in the Lord’s Supper. On the other hand, afterwards I always think how nice it would have been to have followed up the experience with some gathered silence.

It’s usually in the waiting, receptive stillness that I best hear the voice of Jesus. That’s where communion with the crucified and risen Lord happens. And that’s what this is really all about.

A monk speaks out on Friends and the sacraments

I recently read an excellent essay entitled, “The Essentials of Orthodox Spirituality,” by an anonymous author who simply calls himself “a monk of the Eastern church.” This reading is in part preparation for a course on Christian spirituality that I teach, and in part from a genuine interest in the subject.

I found the monk’s section on the sacraments especially enlightening. The subtitle is “The Holy Mysteries,” and the monk contrasts the Orthodox emphasis on the mystery of these means of grace with the Catholic familiarity and openness in regards to the sacraments.

But it was the monk’s comment on Quakers that most surprised and delighted me. Let me quote:

“There is ‘one greater than the Temple' (Matt. 12:6), and greater than the Holy Mysteries. The scholastic axiom ‘Deus non alligator sacramentis’—‘God is not bound to the sacraments’—may have a Western origin, but expresses quite well the Eastern mind. What Orthodox would dare to assert that the members of the Society of Friends are deprived of the graces that the sacraments represent? The angel went down at regular times into the pool, and whosoever stepped in first after the troubling of the waters was made whole; but our Lord directly healed the paralytic who could not step in (John 5). This does not mean that a man could disregard, or slight, or despise, the channels of grace offered by the Church without endangering his soul. It means that no externals, however useful, are necessary to God, in the absolute sense of this word, and that there is no institution, however sacred, which God cannot dispense with” (in Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader, edited by Kenneth J. Collins, Baker, 2000, p. 115).

I feel affirmed in my own faith and renewed in the conviction that one of the callings of Friends is to give witness to the truth of the spiritual reality of the sacraments and God’s ultimate independence of any external means.