Word for today: spread I admit I have a problem with reigning in the contents of a table food spread when we have people over. I worry when I’m writing out the menu if I have enough food. When I shop I inevitably add at least one more menu item because I’m not sure if the original list was enough for the number of people I am hosting. By the time I am preparing food I find not only do I have enough, I have more than I needed by a ton. I admire people who know how to construct a menu in a tastefully constrained way. Sadly, that’s not me. For several years in church every Sunday my husband and I - along with a small well trained team of volunteers- hosted something called “Manna Cafe”. The idea for it sprang from a summer I’d spent hosting lemonade on the lawn after services. I did a different theme every week ( Bastile day, Carnival, A day at the beach etc...) and toward the end of the summer people were so appreciative of it that we made a decision to take it indoors for the whole congregation during the cold winter months. But in my usual overdone style what originally began as an idea to have a soup and salad event turned into 4 menus that suited different folks at different times. It was a mammoth undertaking every week. We did it for 4 full years until my knee finally gave out and everyone felt they needed a break. The problem with doing things over the top is that it takes a toll after a while, both physically and creatively. I admit it, I was pooped. And so we went on a hiatus at first, then allowed others in the congregation to re-imagine it in different terms. I won’t go into the planning process. Suffice it to say it took up a large part of my week and a significant part of my brain matter. But the greatest miracle of this was not that I did it -although people always remarked about the effort. It was that every single week God presented me with a kitchen miracle. Each Friday evening when I would typically begin prep work for the soups and entrees we would serve, I would have a minor anxiety attack, sure I would never be able to get it all done. I’d planned a menu that was staggering. Each Saturday I thought I’ll never be able to pull it off, this week I’ve taken on too much. On Sunday mornings I’d sit out on the back deck at 5am, look at the stars and pray to God for hands that would work, legs that would carry me and stamina to get through it with as little knee pain as possible. If I knew we were short of help I’d pray for God to figure it out somehow. I left it in God’s hands, packed up the car and headed off to Church for an 8 hour shift. Every week, without fail everything got done. Each Sunday passed with enough hands to do the work and enough strength for me to do it well. Every week I would cry a little on the way home as I thanked God once again for providing for the feeding of God’s people. I could never have done that alone. I don’t think I could do it again. But for that time in my life God gave me a miracle a week to show me that serving people was what we are called to do, even just by cooking humble food in the church kitchen. There were two specific benefits I loved about this project. First, it meant the whole congregation had a chance to get to know one another. Those who attended the early service overlapped with the middle group in the dining room. The middle service would socialize with the later group. Elderly people got one great meal that day, and company to share it with for a few hours. And at the end of the services we gifted all of the extra food to struggling families. We knew who they were, they knew to come to the kitchen after things were over to help us, and as a thank you we gave them a few days of meals. In hindsight it worked for God and God’s people on so many levels. It felt like such a privilege to be there, to share. I will be honest, I miss those Sunday meals. It’s not the work I miss, although it did keep me moving and busy. It was the miracle of the spread we were able to provide each and every service, each and every week. I am still dumbfounded by the gift of Grace that was to me, still is to me when I remember those years. I am having people over for dinner. Nick says we have too much food. He’s probably right but I promise none of it will be wasted. I know this because God will provide not only for us for the next several days from this meal, but for unknown (as of yet) others. I did not buy too much, the spread will not be too big. I know God has a plan for this food that’s larger than tonight’s meal. I have faith that a kitchen miracle is just around the corner.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 21:21:57 +0000
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