On Gluttony and Gratitude

Pure Gift - Dec 2013

It was 2am and the air was thick with the night sounds of the jungle and the scent of flame-licked meats on our campfire. It had been going since midnight and we had already used it to cook several dozen sticks of satay - chicken, lamb, and beef.  Now we had two whole, deliciously marinated chickens grilling away for the five of us. There I sat, in the company of a band of brothers, on the rainforest floor: shirt off with a beer at my feet, flecks of meat on my upper lip, and a celebratory cigar in my hand, my appetite completely and utterly sated. The moment was, perhaps, the epitome of masculinity and a scene to which I'd expect Ron Swanson to tip a glass of scotch as a sign of respect.

Thus began the final leg of my gluttonous goodbye to Malaysia.

Some twenty hours earlier I had been on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floor of my nearly-empty apartment. I had completed all of my pre-departure tasks and my 'work' work was more or less complete. All that was left was the process of leave-taking. I closed the door on my life along the South China Sea, drove my condensed-into-two-large-bags-and-a-carry-on worldly belongings to the Church Headquarters for safekeeping, and had a friend drive me to the airport for a flight to Kuala Lumpur. It was the start of a week of feasting (breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, and so on - Hobbit style) and farewells with friends and loved ones there and, later, back in Borneo. In a country that tells directions not by what you see in a given place but by what you eat there, I could think of no other way to properly depart.

If, as Dickens says, "Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess," then I'm unapologetic about the trail of food and drink that I followed out of the country. 

Each meal was a marker of the good life I've led these past four years: Korean BBQ, Shabu-Shabu, YumCha, Artisanal Coffee, Simple Porridge, Elegant Chinese, a Roast Turkey with all of the Christmas Trimmings - the list could go on. Each came paired with conversation and space for laughter, for sadness, for silence, for memory - one more opportunity to be and to enjoy one another's company. It was a week of abundance, of richness, and of blessing - of relishing relationships that have meant the world to me.

As my cup and my waistline runneth over, my heart and my soul overflow with thanksgiving.

At a large holiday gathering on the eve of my departure I was asked to share a parting thought. The word that came to mind then, and still does today, is this: Gratitude. To adopt a posture of gratitude, to be mindful of and thankful for that which and those whom we have, is to see the world and each day in it as a gift to be cherished and shared. . .

A final lesson taught and learned in Malaysia. All but a taste of the life abundant.