Dear Reader:

How I longed for years, when the children were growing up, to never again hear the same repeated daily question, “What’s for dinner?”

If only (I would daydream) we could eliminate meals (prepared by me) from the daily routine of life…how much easier life would be!

By the time I would pick the kids up from school, sports practices or dance lessons…everyone would be starving…”What’s for dinner?” was the greeting I got as I spent my afternoons (after teaching a full day) dropping off and picking up the children from various activities.

I remember thinking to myself…“You guess is as good as mine…I haven’t even gotten home yet and it’s five o’clock!”

So I admit it…we picked up food…a lot… It was a time when life was at its most hectic and the idea of all of us sitting together at the table was pretty non-existent. However, when mother (“Me-Mommy” to her grandchildren) came to live with us (on the other side) at least twice a week we were all seated at her table to a wonderful, home-cooked meal… and, admittedly, those days were our favorites!

There is something important about sitting together, “breaking bread,” that brings a closeness not obtained when everyone is going in all directions all the time. We could actually talk to each other, get updates on each others’ lives, encourage members of the family having a tough time, and/or laugh together at the funny episodes shared among the siblings’ stories.

Kent Nerburn (Small Graces) sums this ordinary part of our day up and its importance to bonding/connections in his usual simplistic and beautiful way. He describes his wife’s dedication to this “ceremony of the ordinary.” It was she who understood the elemental importance of this daily routine.

“We say no prayer, though perhaps we should. But in a quiet way, the table itself is prayer enough. It draws us into a circle, the most mythic and powerful of all human shapes. We pass the food from hand to hand, the most sacramental of all common human acts. Though it remains unspoken, even unrealized, our shared meal creates a bond among us, and, for a moment, makes us one.

“There is no mystery in why Jesus chose a meal to reveal his death to those he loved, why he chose a meal to commemorate his truth. This is the moment when we are most human, when we acknowledge the fallibility of our nature…we must take from others to sustain ourselves. Yet it is the time of celebration when the taking of nourishment fills us with simple joy.”

“We have wandered too far from this sense of the meal as holy. Our food comes too easily. We care less about sustenance, more about choice. We judge the meal, we do not honor it. Only the one, who lifts the hand in preparation, senses even dimly the sacred significance residing in the act.”

Once upon a time the Dakota Sioux, aware of the ‘hallowed’ nature of meal time, would often take the choicest piece of meat and cast it into the fire before beginning to eat. The Tibetans would place the first food of the meal outside the door as an offering to the hungry spirits.

This Monday the Ya’s (my college buddies) will be together again, to go see the movie “Mama Mia- Here We Go Again”…so we can laugh and dance together. Libby is coming Sunday evening and it makes me so happy to have an excuse to set the table with two plates on it. Together we will share a meal …and that is always special…a”ceremony of the ordinary.”

So until tomorrow…

Grace Before Meals

“As we begin this meal with grace,
Let us become aware of the memory
Carried inside the food before us:
The quiver of the seed
Awakening in the earth,
Unfolding in a trust of roots
And slender stems of growth,
On its voyage toward harvest,
The kiss of rain and surge of sun;
The innocence of animal soul
That never spoke a word,
Nourished by the earth
To become today our food;
The work of all the strangers
Whose hands prepared it,
The privilege of wealth and health
That enables us to feast and celebrate.”

~John O’ Donohue

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“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

In between rain showers yesterday (suffering from a mild case of cabin fever) I ventured outside to take out the trash and look over the yard. Michael Salvo managed to get the grass cut between showers Thursday…a determined, wonderful guy who kept returning when the sun peeked out! I am so lucky to have him!

As I walked around the benches with the potted flowers on them I noticed something was missing. The original wooden round table I got to start the garden had collapsed. I suspect too much rain…the wood just rotted away and there was the pot of creeping jenny lying down on the ground buried in planks.

I rescued it…found  a wired “pedestal” for it to sit on and placed it on the other side of the yellow bench…so pretty to look at on both sides now…the new planter on one side…the creeping jenny on the other.

Nature gave me a gift as the sun was setting last evening…I looked out my side window (while putting the blog to bed) and the pinkish sky was peeking through the growing shadows in the trees…for just a moment I had my enchanted secret garden I have so dreamed about…