Edamame, anyone?

Several weeks ago, I attended a United Methodist Church Conference being held at a beautiful big city hotel. Along with hundreds of  well-appointed sleeping rooms, this venue had numerous banquet spaces and a huge wait/catering staff. Our event lasted an entire weekend, so we had a total of seven full meals served to the 300 or so folks in attendance.
The food was good. There was plenty of it.
However, it became immediately apparent, during the first meal, that the staff was spending a huge amount of time preparing and serving "specially prepared" meals.
At the tables, seating 10, it was the norm to see two or three regularly plated banquet meals and 7 or 8 "special meals". Some of these "special folks" were having salads with specific types of lettuce. Others "no salad" plates". Some had requested "no pork" and others "no chicken". Vegetarian meals and vegan meals had been prepared. There were "no spice" requests, "no gluten" requests, "no dairy" requests, "no nuts" requests and specific fruit requests. And the list didn't stop there!
Food has always been important to Methodists. We are known to honor the large casserole dish as the "symbol" of our faith. There are very few skinny Methodists, and true to our doctrine of "no dish goes uneaten", there were perhaps only 1% of our group who were not in need of a little less chow and lot more exercise.
I found it interesting that these same attendees were all or had once been devotees of the good old-fashioned Methodist pot-luck dinner, salad luncheon and men's breakfasts. Only God knows what kind of ingredients go into the dishes served at those events.
God Bless the Methodists. I noticed that NO ONE turned down the desserts.

Dear Lord. Our immense propensity toward ridiculous behavior amazes me. It's a wonder you can love and assist us when you must spend a great deal of your time laughing hysterically.
It seems the harder we try, the crazier life becomes. Help us to focus and the truly important issues.
We must love you and one another and you have taught us.