Wednesday Meditation: Food For Thought

Central American Lord’s Prayer

Our Father

who is in us here on earth,

holy is your name

in the hungry

who share their bread and their song.

Your kingdom come,

which is a generous land

which flows with milk and honey.

Let us do your will,

standing up when all are sitting down,

and raising our voice

when all are silent.

You are giving us our daily bread

in the song of the bird and the miracle of the corn.

Forgive us 

for keeping silent in the face of injustice,

and for burying our dreams,

for not sharing bread and wine,

love and the land,

among us, now.

Don’t let us fall into temptation

of shutting the door through fear;

of resigning ourselves to hunger and injustice;

of taking up the same arms as the enemy,

but deliver us from evil.

Give us the perseverance and the solidarity

to look for love,

even if the path has not yet been trodden,

even if we fall;

so we shall have known your kingdom

which is being built for ever and ever.

Amen.

Finding Affinity, Whole Community, Sharing Food

The book I have on the window ledge here in the studio is Take This Bread by Sara Miles.   It seems sensible to read it as I come for morning quiet to begin this day.

Sara writes about her time in Central America during the time of the Sandinistas.  What has grabbed my attention is where she is describing the feeling of total community,  the feeling of affinity.  “It was a feeling of total community with others, whether or not I was like them, through the common fact of our mortal bodies.  We all had bodies that could suffer…we all had hearts that could stop beating in an instant. …I looked at other, different people, and saw them, face-to-face - and, seeing them, felt a we.   Never was that feeling stronger than when people fed me, which they did constantly.   In El Salvador, a priest gave me cookies; in the Philippines, a peasant woman gave me fish.  Over and over, despite poverty of the places I visited, despite the danger my presence often meant, strangers fed me, freely.  Food took on a new meaning for me in the war years, as I searched to make meaning amid suffering.”(pg. 39,40)

Reading these memories from Sara, awakened my own memories of such giving and feeding.   I remember my travels into Eastern Europe over a number of years - to Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova and Ukraine.   Travelling with a group of women from Linwood House Ministries, we visited various towns in these countries and in those towns spent time with women from various churches.   In the years I visited these countries, not so very long after the political climate had changed enough to allow Westerners easy access to travel,  most people were desperately poor and had only the bare essentials for living.  Yet what was freely and liberally shared with us was the invitation to come and share food with them.   It was not an us and them, but as Sara Miles writes, it was we.  We were all women with stories, with suffering, carrying the inner wounds of those life journeys.  We were women who loved, laughed, cried, and felt most at home when we could share the life sustaining essential of food with each other.  We are all equal, we are all one in this journey.  

While there are many special moments my mind holds of these travels, there are several that are prominent in my memories.   When it was time to leave, on several occasions, women would arrive early in the morning with freshly made traditional foods for us to take with us, to enjoy on our journey.   One morning, at the home a friend and I were billeted in, our hostess was up well before her 5am departure time for work.  In the very early hours of that morning she had spent 2 hours baking a delicious and very generous amount of a pastry and cheese dish.  It was beautifully wrapped up, still warm, and presented to us to share with our whole group.   These women had so little, stretching it to feed their families as best they could, yet they gave us their love and friendship in the form of nurturing, life giving food.   In the Ukraine, when we left our last city, Chisinau, we headed to the train, for the 17.5 hour trip back to Kiev, and then homeward.  Our host and his wife, presented us the some homemade wine and several bottles of water.  At the market by the train station we picked up several loaves of bread.   This would be our food for the long ride back to Kiev as there is little food sold on these trains, only tea and coffee and small packets of biscuits.  As the train rattled and swayed, the 9 of us travelling together, crowded together in one of our 3 compartments, filling the top 2 bunks and the bottom 2 bunks.  We shared our personal highlights, our struggles and fears that had been overcome.    Then, in the ancient, yet present day, tradition, we shared bread and wine together, honouring this life giving Christian way of being present with the Holy One and with each other.  We were present with each person we had met on our journey and carried their stories within us as we shared bread and wine together.  A community, and communion, shared.   We had shared  the life giving symbols of bread and wine at the Communion Table.  These gifts, symbols of Jesus journey through pain and suffering, and Jesus love that gave everything,  reminded us of his promise to always walk with us.  It was the reminder to never stop sharing this essential part of our journey as followers.  We were, we are, all one in this journey.   These are memories I visit often.

As a young child, growing up in a very strict exclusive fundamentalist group, I remember my mother preparing food for a table full of guests from our church, or being invited to dinner at the homes of other members.  What is very clear in that period of my life, was that food was never to be shared with or prepared by, anyone other than our exclusive group.  If you were not in favour in the church, or had left the group, you would never again be allowed to come to the table, communion or dinner table, at any time ever.   This became its own kind of starvation to those who were excluded.     In the years that have passed since this early childhood chapter, I have experienced the gift of sharing food with families in many places in the world.   I have shared the Eucharist in many places in the world.    All of these Holy spaces have deepened within me how life giving sharing food with another is.  All of my life experiences have gathered together deep within me the truth that the life essentials of food and water, and community,  are to be available, and to be shared by all. 

My soul calling, and my heart cry, is “Come to the table, come and share, come and live.   Eat.   Savour.   Linger.   Live.”

Looking for the Light

This morning when I awoke it was raining, still raining, but the sound of it on the metal roof was soothing and I fell back asleep.  When I awakened a little later the rain had stopped and fog had rolled in.   Our “Sunshine Coast” is actually a rain forest area, hence we have more rainy days than sunny ones, especially in the winter months of the year.  On those days I miss the cold sunshine filled winter days of Alberta where I lived 26 years.   And, it has been raining for days on end this winter!  I have been yearning for sunshine, brightness, that glorious warmth that beams into my whole being.  These dark overcast days of winter get tiresome and I forget that there is much that is happening, just hidden from my view.

I have just begun to read a new book by John Philip Newell, and this morning read my way through the chapter “Reconnecting with the Light”.  This particular chapter had several beautiful pieces of poetry by Mary Oliver, and in this one she wrote about the Light at the heart of life.

"When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pine,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

So, even though it was still raining, very gently, it seemed that the joy of a morning run would provide space for me to be aware of the Light within in spite of rain.   Mary Oliver’s words were a gentle push this morning to get me out into the rain to  feel the joy of running alone. This time of solitude gave space for the inner Light to remind me to keep on moving through this darker space knowing the light, the season of sun, will be back.  In fact, Light is always there, all around, if I would just linger and wait for it.

Finding The Gentleness of The Feast

In the last weeks of cooking school, as we prepared for our final exam, we worked to make our creations into perfections that would please the Chef/Instructors.  We created them over and over again each night, where the dishes were sent out to the school restaurant to delight the diners.  At lease we hoped they did!   Each of us hoped that on the day of the finals we would be give either a specific dish, or specific ingredients, to prepare where we usually had our greatest successes.  Creating came so much easier when it was a dish you felt really comfortable preparing.

For the last few years I have been following the practice of having a special word to ponder upon and meditate on for the New Year.  I hope to experience what it has to teach me, and also to be open to its transforming power.  I have read a number of articles in the last few weeks reminding me that it is time to open up myself to receive one for 2015.  Around this time one year ago I started opening my heart to what my ‘word’ would be for 2014.  “Feasting” was the word that came.   A word that reminded me of those ‘best’ creations from cooking school; something I loved creating and found great delight in.   I somehow expected this word to be about the action of feasting, of lively joyous meals around our dining table, with plenty of Don’t Eat Alone meals at our faith community.   Feasting would be all about creating and serving and while others came to enjoy the feast. This would all unfold easily and joyfully I thought.

Feasting, throughout 2014,  has been about abundance - enough to eat, plenty of laughter and love, energetic and lively discussions, and plenty of conversations woven around difficult places in our lives that held hope and tenderness.  We have enjoyed good wine and great desserts and sat around the table until the wine was finished and we had no space left to eat another bite.  There have been Don’t Eat Alone dinners where the number of people sitting down to eat was double the number signed up!   Somehow the food stretched for everyone, although I was certain we would be short!  (I always worry about not haven enough for everyone almost every time I cook for a large group.)  Our second season of a Co-Op Kitchen had its abundances too.  After the learning experience of the first season working with the disenfranchised our cooking lunches this second time around was even more creative, empowering and fun.

I often enjoyed the large size gatherings from behind the scenes in the kitchen.   I would ask myself “how can I stay present when I am so busy trying to make sure everyone has a place, and has enough to eat?”   There must be many people out there who ask the same question and I would love to know how they find the right balance.  Realistically, if my calling is to be part of the preparing of the feast, I realize I have to lean into it and learn to trust that it will all unfold.  Leaning into it and trusting, theoretically, joy should be the flavour that seasons this work and in this I taste the feast from where I sit/stand.

Our church family had their annual St Nicolas lunch this past weekend, an annual pot luck that is well attended.  It was a loud and boisterous affair with everyone crowding into the hall after the service.   With so many unforeseen extras wishing to join the table at the last minute, the kitchen and hall staffs were somewhat overwhelmed. In the kitchen we were trying to make sure that all the food was properly heated while in the hall, extra room and extra tables had to be found.  It was crazy, hectic, joyful and frustrating all at once.  The conversation level grew louder while many guests, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, searched for a places to sit with their friends or family.  There was a full house for sure, but we did not have the heart to turn anyone away.  Perhaps this is also what the gentleness of the feast looks like - making room, giving welcome, ensuring that no one is turned away.  

Holding all of these thoughts, bundling them together, “Feasting” has become something quite different for me.  I have begun to observe that at the larger dinner events there are those of us who keep watch for those guests looking for spaces or looking a little confused.  I relish this role of gently inviting them to come in and assuring them that spaces will be found or new ones created. Feasting has come to be firstly about this gentleness in approach, outside the kitchen.  Creating feasts is not solely about practicing my culinary art in the kitchen but also being led to the table as a participant and being fully awake to the gentleness of that moment.  Seeing Feasting from this perspective becomes more than having an abundance of good food but about gratitude - gratitude for sacred space, peace, gentleness, story, colour, texture and a celebration of our senses.

There is a gentleness to be embraced individually around feasting.  Does how I eat become a way of honouring my body, and letting me love who and what I am?  This is a huge challenge for me!

Feasting and being nourished has taken on a new shape, new dimension for me.  In this year I have often thought of the gentleness of being fed  as the ancient prophet Hosea wrote about:

“But they did not know that it was I who was healing them,

who was guiding them on through human means with reins of love.

With them I was like someone removing the yoke from their jaws,

and I bent down to feed them.”

Another translation says “I gently caused them to eat.”

Yes, gentleness is an essential part of the feast.  I see that more fully now.

Gentleness is an essential piece of letting us see and honour the human dignity within each person.

Gentleness allows us to be more cautious in how we care for this Earth, this place that is home for us.   

Gentleness is how I see and experience God in the midst of my pain during my dark days and in the midst of an often frantic way of life.   

Gentleness is an invitation that makes space for all at the table

Gentleness that says all are worthy to come to the communion table, in fact,  more than worthy, for all are invited and welcomed there simply because that is how love is.

Gentleness that soothes the pain of injustice, that continues to be the voice for justness in the midst of injustice.

Gentleness invites each one of us to sit down, have a coffee or a meal, and share our ideas.  In our diversity and the differences we will share our need to eat, to be fed and to be seen and heard.

So come and sit down, take this place, your place at the table, and may gentleness rest upon your being.

The Taste of Emotions - Bitter, Sweet, Salty, Sour

I am sitting here holding things that create deep emotion in me.  It feels like I am ‘tasting’ these emotions as they pass through my mind and enter my heart.  Descriptions of taste are often associated with strong emotions, and my tasting them brings out the bitter, sweet, salty and sour in strong ways.

David came across a badly wounded cat on the road and stopped to tend to it.  It was so badly wounded, he knew it could not be saved.   So he gently, tenderly gathered it up, carried it to the side of the road and sat with it in his arms for the few moments it lived.   He had no idea who this beautiful feline belonged to.  He knew they would be distressed at loosing such a beautiful companion but he had no way of telling them.   I could hear the tenderness as he shared the story mixed with his confusion that anyone could not only harm a living thing but that they could just drive away and do nothing about it.  There is a sweet beauty in compassion while at the same time there is the bitter taste that pain and cruelty leave behind.

Several friends, who are very good writers, have been silent for some time.  Recently I have read their new pieces that have the underlying taste of salt of the tears present in their respective journeys.  What I hear is the wisdom that is growing within them, compassion with themselves and others, and how they are choosing to ‘walk out’ their stories in their actions in community.

I read the many tributes to Robin Williams and how he helped us laugh, yet how he struggled with addiction and depression, and as Anne Lamott writes “Here is what is true: a third of the people you adore and admire in the world and in your families have severe mental illness and/or addiction. I sure do. I have both. And you still love me. You help hold me up. I try to help hold you up. Half of the people I love most have both; and so do most of the artists who have changed and redeemed me, given me life. Most of us are still here, healing slowly and imperfectly. Some days are way too long.”    I have walked through depression and many I love have, and are, walking this road.  Many I love know the battle that addiction and depression brings to you.   The salty taste of many many tears and the taste of bitterness from wounds, and the sour taste of regret surround these journeys.  It is hard for those suffering to see that in this journey is the sweetness of who they are and what they have given to those they love and to those they never knew.   

I am thinking of the refugee camps that are flooded in Sudan, of the people fleeing extreme fundamentalist warriors, and there is little food and few places to run to.  I continue to hold the young women in Nigeria who have been taken from their school and held hostage, and seemingly there is little being done to find them and bring them home There are those in Israel and Gaza who have no home, no safety and they are the casualties of extreme thinking that leaves no space for peace, compassion, dialogue and working together.  Chaos surrounds places like Ukraine and other countries.  This suffering has no beauty that I can see and yet the courage I hear of and the beauty I see through many stories is amazing.   My friend Erin, working at One Shot Project in Iraq, is opening a window on what courage looks like in the midst of deep suffering and uncertainty.  Erin’s writing speaks of a strength that is beyond what I know.

I hold the treasured moments with Anna, my Granddaughter, as we picked raspberries and huckleberries together and her sweet conversations as we wandered around the garden.   Then as she helped me set the table for an evening meal, the memories of my own Grandmother’s love and patience as she showed me how to pick black currents in her garden came flooding in.  This is blessing and beauty, life shared, love expanded and love that totally surprises me still.   Anna’s arrival came with much struggle and there is an intense sweetness that her beautiful being gives to her parents and all those who love her.  This is a sweetness that is so very very precious.  A sweetness that is held with tenderness and is a treasure to be protected.

Working with some young people in the cafe, watching them struggle with things that they don’t know, it seems that no one has taught them simple routines for a workplace.  I silently remember all those who have taken my awkwardness, my inner pain that came out as anger, and they saw my hunger to learn, to know, and to grow.  I have to step back and remember my Grandmother teaching me, my Mother showing me, and at an early age, my Dad taking me to work and telling me the importance of how to behave in a business setting.   I remember my beloved friend Edith, who didn’t point out my mistakes, made because of not knowing, but instead she used humour to guide me, to teach me and to encourage me to learn as much as I could to do the job well.   I have been nurtured and mentored by so many and now I find myself wondering how I can share that learning with these young people, to instruct them on the way to do things without humiliating them or making them feel inadequate.  How can they be inspired to learn so their path becomes one of being built up, of carrying compassion and integrity into the future of their lives?  

As I look back there are all the tastes of bitter, sweet, salty and sour.  Tastes that each have their way of teaching how to find the good, to learn to step away from what does not nurture, what can be kept and what we must leave behind in order to more forward.  There is deep gratitude for those who poured love, courage and wisdom into my life.  

Learning to discern the sweet, the bitter, the sour and salty, will take me a life time.  Yet as I continue to experience those tastes,  it is those very flavours in all their combinations that give a full rich flavour to life.   Today salt seems to be the strongest flavour, the salt of tears that have flowed,  but the taste of the sweet,  of all that is beautiful, is just as real and they mingle together. 

Simplicity As A Feast

Friday nights have been a night for easy food, relaxing, visiting and have as little schedule as possible.  At least that is how it has been for me since childhood until I entered the food industry.   Friday nights became a night for others to relax and have no schedule, and I was part of the team behind the scenes in the kitchen preparing the meal they had ordered.   Working in a commercial kitchen has tended to dull my focus on what the Feast can be.   The time has come to journey more deeply into an understanding and appreciation of it, and practically find the Holy moments of experiencing it.   This past Friday evening became one of those ‘experiencing’ moments.

We had been away for a few days but I had wanted to keep up my training for a half marathon I'd registered for.   On the first morning half way into my run, I had turned my head to look across the road, and then misplaced my left foot, resulting in a spectacular fall on the side of the road.  The result was a broken ankle, dashing my hopes of running this first half marathon!   Limping around the house, once we got home, I was feeling really sorry for myself because I was missing my running and I was missing my regular schedule of work in the cafe.   So comfort food was definitely in order on this Friday night and maybe creating it would be it own soothing affect.   As we had been away I was not sure what was in the fridge and pantry so I had to do some sleuthing to see what had potential to become ingredients for our evening meal.   There was some chorizo in the fridge that needed to be used somehow, there were onions and carrots (which should be a staple in any fridge) and some fresh spinach. A tin of tomatoes, some fusilli pasta in the pantry as well so all of this looked like it could become something for dinner that would be fairly decent.   I had time on my side so if I was to make a tomato sauce it could simmer away for at least an hour.   There were a few bottles of red wine in the wine rack and so I chose the one that had a screw top and was not a pricey bottle.  After all if I only used a little wine in the sauce at least I could easily close the bottle up again.  Well, actually I rather like drinking a glass of red wine while I am cooking so maybe we would have enough left to enjoy with dinner!

The onion, carrots and garlic were laid out ready to go.  Peeling carrots becomes a nice easy rhythm as they are stripped of their outer coat, looking clean and smooth afterwards.   I love my chef knife and  how it feels in my hands.   Chopping the carrots and onions into small dice size has its own  rhythm and beat.  The garlic is peeled and sliced and then diced small.   I love the feel of holding the blade of the knife sideways, giving a flat surface to press down onto the garlic and as you press and drag the knife blade over it is releases some of the juices.   This time of year my home grown garlic is long since eaten and so I have only the much dryer older garlic that comes from the local grocery store.  Oh how I look forward to a new crop of garlic once summer arrives!   In fact the tender shoots of what was planted last fall are already making a timid appearance in the garden.     I reach up to grab my saucier pan that hangs on the cast iron rack above the counter and get it heating up.   Once it is hot that lovely golden olive oil is poured into the pan and quite quickly it is hot enough to throw in onions, carrots and garlic.  They dance and sizzle as the edges change to a slight golden colour.   Salt, thyme and oregano get sifted through my fingers and fall into the pan, mingling their flavours and doing their bit in drawing out the flavours.   This is the moment to splash in the vibrant red rich red wine and let it begin to simmer and reduce, its fragrance rising as mist off the ingredients that are softening and absorbing each others flavours. Oh yes it does smell quite lovely!  I don’t mind using tinned tomatoes at all, in fact my friends in Italy used them all the time in making their simple and rich sauce.   Once the tomatoes were in, rinsing the can with a touch of water it makes sure everything ends up in the cooking process.  Last ingredient is a sprinkling of sugar.   Now all that is left is to bring it to a rolling bubble and then reduce the heat to let it simmer slowly, ever so slowly, and in doing so reduce it to further intensify the flavours.   It cooked slowly for about an hour so then it was time to once again bring out the invaluable chef knife and cube the chorizo.   As it sautéed in the fry pan, the fusilli cooked its way to a soft but el dente edible pasta.   The pasta gets added to the cooked chorizo and a ladle or two of the sauce are added.  When I was working with my friend Eddie, a fantastic chef, I learned a lot of tricks from him.   One, he made a great tomato sauce and two, he always put his pasta into the fry pan with the ingredients he was adding to it, then added a little sauce and brought it all up to a hot temperature just before serving it.  I love throwing in a big handful of fresh spinach and tossing it, allowing the heat of the pasta and sauce to wilt it.   Last thing - throw in the finely grated pecorino, myzithra, and a bit of sharp white cheddar in to the make the last toss.   That was the cheese I found in the fridge.  I poured the completed pasta dish into a beautiful blue pottery bowl that my husband has had for many years.  It looked so good on the table and the aroma was tantalizing.   It was a simple pasta, one meal in a beautiful pottery bowl.   A feast indeed, not because of lavishness or abundance, but because of the joy in the preparation, the anticipation of enjoying it, and the blessing of sharing this evening meal to nourish my life, and the life of my husband.

Feasting, in this Lenten season, seems to be drawing my focus to the simplicity of a feast, the essence of what nurtures us mind, body and soul.   Take the bread and wine, the simple ingredients of the Christian Eucharist.   I don’t fully understand yet the depth of this simple but profound Feast, but I do know that each time I come to the Communion Table, I am seeking more of what it offers.  That is a subject for another time.

In The Ordinary, Where Feasts are Hidden and Revealed

The day began with a run along the country road where the sounds of the water running down the ditches played a tune.  It became loud and vibrant where the water was full and rapid flowing, then changed tempo to a slower rhythm where the water was less, it moved a bit slower and took on a quieter tone.   My gaze was down the road but I heard the water flowing beside me play its own tune.   It was a feast of sounds, ordinary sounds that come from Creation.  They played their melody as I ran along this ordinary country road in the place I call home and it sang life to me.  It was a feast for my senses as I ran, as I listened, as I inhaled the sounds and smells of today.

Coffee midday connecting with a friend I hadn’t had a face to face chat with for some time, in a café that we both love some downtime was the next feast.   A big bowl of delicious steaming espresso coffee and a cup of chicken coconut curry soup with a large slice of fresh made warm ciabatta bread!   Soup and bread which are comfort food in the winter months brought me satisfaction.   The conversation with my friend brought me life – wide awake, be alert kind of life!

Banana squash that had grown in our garden this summer didn’t produce an abundant crop but there was one left from the harvest last fall.   I cooked it up and made a squash curry soup with apples.  It will be a quick and ready supper that I can take from the freezer in the future.  A feast, a simple feast with the abundance of our small garden that gives us beautiful produce, will give us a bowl of hot comforting soup this winter.

I brought the platter of food to the table tonight, and carrying it I felt deliciously alive!   It was spread upon a beautiful pottery platter that David has had for many years. Sautéed potatoes, which are a favourite of my beloved’s, lay beside free range chicken thighs that were seared in a little sesame oil and then cooked a little longer  bathed in kejup manis (an Indonesian soy sauce that also contains some star anise and is sweeter and thicker than normal soy sauce).  Some fresh green beans, blanched and then sautéed in a little butter were the ‘fresh’ ingredient for our meal.   We don’t always have wine during the week but a glass of Nk’Mip Tallon red wine added an aditional touch to this ‘ordinary’ meal, a feast of ordinary things that nourished us.

Today, looking back looks like a tender sweet banquet.  There were the sounds of nature and life that came with the morning run.   A simple lunch with a dear friend was another feast – the taste of communion, bread, soup and sweet conversation in a Light filled sacred space.  It was an ordinary evening meal that held the sacred ingredients of love, of Holiness, of wonder and communion, and the presence of the Beloved.   Home is this place where I am fully free to be myself, awake and alive to the reality that Love has given me precious gifts that I could not have imagined.

Yes, today was about feasting, finding the abundance, within the ordinary of every day life.   Tonight the question I sit with is what if finding and creating spaces for feasting with others is my life work?