Phil's Feast...

You may not recognize this guy from feasts past. Phil is our nephew. My older brother's youngest son.  Follow me?  He's from Arizona and he moved to Indiana last summer.  This is his first feast season with us and you can imagine his bewilderment at the first feast.  He's 19. The biggest questions on his mind were "When can eat eat?" and "What are we going to eat?"  The secrecy was cruel.  He's very much a tummy driven kind of guy.  I'm pretty sure he's never missed a meal in his life. And around here, he's been known to eat two dinners because he just can't make it to 6:30 for our regularly scheduled meal. He's a very pleasant young man. He laughs a lot.  When he's happy, nervous, scared.  He just laughs.  Almost a cackle, actually.  We've had a very mild autumn and my kids blame him for it.  They figure the Lord is trying to ease him into a colder climate.  He just thinks it's cold. My kids are still in T-shirts. He never, ever discusses his feelings, but that's something he's going to have to get over if he spends any time with his Uncle Bill. Phil has his own flooring company so if you need tile, hardwood, laminate, carpet or vinyl, he's your guy.  You'll be hard pressed to find a more dedicated worker.

His feast... well, it was a first.  I had the day off.  He wanted to do the shopping by himself and the meal prep by himself. Okey-dokey- I handed him $50 and he was off.  This made the other kids nervous, but I had faith in him.  He had a "Bachelor's Feast."  The table was hysterical.  Styrofoam plates and plastic forks- no dish washing.  His beverage was Dr.Pepper in cans.  Again, no dish washing. Our gifts?  Rolls of toilet paper.  No, I'm not kidding.  When asked why, he said he had 7 bucks left in his pocket and toilet paper comes with 4 rolls in a package and that would work out for 10 people. Economics. Weird that my kids were actually excited about their own roll of toilet paper.  His appetizer was milk bones.  Again, no joke.  I asked if milk bones were safe for human consumption and he said he'd been eating them all day... I wasn't convinced and abstained. The main course... 6, yes SIX, pounds of bacon, 30 corn dogs and a huge pot of instant mashed potatoes.  You know, stuff a bachelor likes to eat and can cook on his own.  I can say unequivocally that my children have never sat down and eaten all the bacon they wanted.  They did last night.  And there were leftovers.  Again, a first.  His dessert was Little Debbie bear claws. We all had such a good time.  All in all, I'd say his first feast was highly successful. 

William read the last verse from James 1- "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: To visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."  Sometimes we make things more complicated than they really are.  Help the helpless without expecting anything in return and be clean.