Adam & Eve on a Raft

This morning I was thinking about, Adam & Eve on a raft with one baby, axle grease, birdseed, Joe and one burnt British.

Now before you try to get a mental picture of two people with figs leaves and NO belly buttons on a raft in the middle of the ocean, slipping on axle grease with some guy named Joe (by the way where did he come from?) hanging on for dear life as he spills a bowl of birdseed and accidently catches someone from Britain on fire, let me explain.

I think it would be so cool to have a diner, you know the kind, or maybe you don’t because they are getting few and far between.
I’m talking the kind where the coffee is hot and flows without limits, the place where the waitress calls you honey, the plates are heavy with chips & cracks from years of use, the food, oh my the food. It’s like nothing you have ever had; it’s what brings you back time and time again. The interesting thing about any of these types of diners that I have found is this; the food is never pretty, but man is it good!

Here’s what I mean. I have on occasions gone to let’s call them “fancy” restaurants. I’m not a big “fancy” restaurant person; all I care about; is the food good. Anyway here we are at this one restaurant with menus that have no prices on them (what’s that about!) I order my food only after I made the waiter get me a menu with the prices. We waited for about 10 minutes before the salads showed up. Now I’m not a big salad eater, so when I saw that the salad consisted of 3 pieces of lettuce, a very small tomatoes, some stick things stacked as if you’re going to build a fire, on an oversized plate, I thought, well no big deal maybe they ran out of the smaller plates and had to use these big ones instead, because common sense says this little green thing doesn’t need a plate this big.

Finally after the “salad” was finished we sat and waited for the main course. Now by this time I’m ready to eat. The waiter comes out of the kitchen headed our way, my thought, “yes here it comes. For what I am about to pay, that plate should be almost impossible for him to carry, but he’s doing a fine job! I stood up so I made sure he could see where I was, I almost shouted “Here I am!” but my inner voice said no, ok it wasn’t my inner voice it was my wife’s and it had the tone that carried consequences with it.
As the food approached the table I could see that it was under a metal domed lid. I’m thinking radioactive, why else cover it with metal, but at this point who cares!
The waiter puts the plates with the domes in front of my wife and me then with great flare he lifts the lids and we get the first view of our meal, I could swear I heard music playing as he lifted the lids to expose what? Hey where’s my food? I’m staring down at this large plate but there’s a speck on it, right in the center. There is a brown speck with some green stuff surrounding it highlighted with some kind of red stuff made into designs all around it. Almost as if they are pointing me to where the food is, the brown speck wasn’t a speck it was my food. I took my spoon and scooped up my food, chewed maybe 3 times and swallowed, that was it, done, over.
At this point I thought my stomach was going to revolt, like how dare you tease me! Needless to say we skipped dessert and marked that one off our list of “favorites”.

I remember the old diners, I remember the waitress’ yelling back to the cooks with some kind of codes, and all you saw was the cook nodding his head and never looking up so he could keep cranking out the food, and I mean food, lots and lots of food. Here’s the point, the food never was “pretty”, no one had to put designs on your plate to show you where it was, you knew it because you saw it and it didn’t matter what it looked like you knew that it was going to be good.

Maybe that’s why we don’t want to hear about the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Maybe it’s not pretty enough, you know that whole cross thing. Two pieces of wormwood lashed together dropped in a hole on top of a garbage dump, with the Savior of the world, who has been brutally beaten, mocked and spit upon hanging there by nails through his hands and feet; blood flowing down His face because of a crown of thorns, maybe that’s not pretty enough for us. We are always looking to make things pretty when in reality things aren’t as pretty as they seem. Oh yea they may look good, but they have nothing inside. Sin isn’t pretty, our sin. My sin, the sin of man is not pretty, but the most beautiful sight of all is the blood stained cross. I don’t want pretty, I want forgiven and forgiven I am. Thanks God for “filling” my plate!

So let me get back to Adam & Eve on a raft before I close. Remember the “code” words, well here is what they mean let’s see how well you did: Adam & Eve on a raft- two poached eggs on toast. Axle grease- butter. Baby-glass of milk. Joe-come on you know this one-coffee. Birdseed- bowl of cereal. Burn the British-an English muffin toasted. Ok I got to go- I need a Pittsburgh