Food is a language of care, the thing we do when traditional language fails us, when we don’t know what to say, when there are no words to say.
And that’s the core of prayer: admitting that just maybe, there’s something going on that we can’t see. So when I’m afraid, I pray, and I ask for God’s help, that I will be able to see something I wasn’t able to see before, or at least trust him to do the seeing.
Just because you have the capacity to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it.
WE LIVE out the love of God when we care for those he brings into our lives. Have you ever been surprised by who you came to love, because they became yours in some way?
Age, like numbers on a scale and letters on a report card, tells us very little of who we are. You decide every year exactly how young and how old you want to be.
I’ve learned that in many cases, change is not a function of life’s cruelty but instead a function of God’s graciousness.
We decide where the time goes. There’s so much freedom in that, and so much responsibility.
You cannot taste the oil until you pour out the vinegar.
My regrets: how many years I bruised people with my fragmented, anxious presence. How many moments of connection I missed – too busy, too tired, too frantic and strung out on the drug of efficiency.
As I look back, in many instances, I simply followed the natural course of things. And great things happened, mostly. But over time I realized they weren’t necessarily great things for me. They were maybe someone else’s great things, and I was both taking up the space that was meant for them and not standing in my own space, like wearing someone else’s shoes, leaving them barefoot.
Pride, for years, has told me that I am strong enough to drink from a firehose, and gluttony tells me it will all be so delicious. But those voices are liars. The glass of cool water is more lovely and sustaining than the firehose will ever be, and I’m starting to trust the voices of peace and simplicity more than pride and gluttony. They’re leading me well these days.
There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming.
This is what I know: God can make something beautiful out of anything, out of darkness and trash and broken bones. He can shine light into even the blackest night, and he leaves glimpses of hope all around us. An oyster, a sliver of moon, one new bud on a black branch, a perfect tender shoot of asparagus, fighting up through the dirt for the spring sun. New life and new beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be seen.
I needed a piece of a story, something real and full of life and blood and breath and heartache, something that someone had lived through, a piece of wisdom earned the hard way. That’s why telling our stories is so important.
Food and cooking are among the richest subjects in the world. Every day of our lives, they preoccupy, delight, and refresh us. Food is not just some fuel we need to get us going toward higher things. Cooking is not a drudgery we put up with in order to get the fuel delivered. Rather, each is a heart’s astonishment. Both stop us dead in our tracks with wonder. Even more, they sit us down evening after evening, and in the company that forms around.
In my experience, you can never go wrong with flowers and food, even when someone insists that there’s nothing at all you can do.
Many cooks and food writers have nothing but negative things to say about people who have dietary restrictions or preferences. Quite often it’s suggested that you just make what you want to make, and everyone can find something to eat, most likely. But if feeding people around your table is about connecting with them more than it is about showing off your menu or skills, isn’t it important to cook in such a way that their preferences or restrictions are honored?
But our goal, remember, is to feed around our table the people we love. We’re not chefs or restaurateurs or culinary school graduates, and we shouldn’t try to be. Make it the way the people you love want to eat it.
But what I eventually realized is that the return on investment was not what I’d imagined, and that the expectations were only greater and greater. When you devote yourself to being known as the most responsible person anyone knows, more and more people call on you to be that highly responsible person. That’s how it works. So the armload of things I was carrying became higher and higher, heavier and heavier, more and more precarious. At.
When you do what you love with people who love the same thing, something is born into your midst and begins to connect you. When you walk with someone, listen to their story, carry their burden, play with their kids, that’s community. When you find yourself learning from them and inviting them into the family places in your life, that’s community, and wherever you find it, it’s always a gift.