I love pizza. I eat it regularly. At times, I have eaten it daily.

When I was growing up, Mama Celeste talked about her frozen pizza using one word: Abbondanza. It is Italian. It means abundant.

For pizza, abundance means lots of good ingredients. It means overflowing. It means a little sloppy, a little messy. It means not measured and mass-produced.  When you eat a slice that is abbondanza, you need an extra napkin. You need a fork at first. You need to stop talking, but you can’t because you are laughing with friends.

I’m not sure I ever had one of Mama Celeste’s pizzas. I can’t imagine them being abbondanza, at least not as much as one of the pizzas she would have made in her kitchen, for family, one at a time.

In the middle of talking about sheep and shepherds, Jesus reminded me of the commercials for pizza, the ones with Mama Celeste looking at the camera and saying, “abbondanza.”

Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

I think about the life that Jesus is talking about, a life with lots of good ingredients. A life that’s a little sloppy, a little messy. A life that isn’t measured, a life that isn’t mass produced. A life that takes a second napkin.

Looking at this life, I remembered  Paul’s comment about about God being able to do “exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.” It’s that same kind of overflowing, life that Jesus was talking about.

I think about invitations from God to laugh and cry and celebrate and live creatively and boldly and it makes me wonder: How come I settle for frozen pizza so often?