Who's coming to dinner?

The time of year has come to begin planting seeds. I love growing things, the smell of the peat and earth, nurturing seeds into plants into something beautiful and nourishing.  The work of our hands and the great work of the creator waking the earth and us from dormancy; unfurling my spirit like new leaves; it is my favorite time of year. While I was chopping cilantro yesterday, it's strong aromatic scent filling my kitchen, I was thinking about those plants, how I will use them to feed the people I love.  I have been reading a lot of Shauna Neiquist lately, so while I have always shared her "feeding people thing", I have been thinking about food a lot lately. 

Unlike Shauna, I don't host fancy dinner parties, but I am the queen of your every day week night dinner.  When I met Lance, I barely knew how to cook at all. I had a few recipes that I inherited from my mother, but on the whole, she didn't like to cook with me, because I am MESSY, and I wasn't really interested in cooking or hanging out with my mom at when I lived at home. But having oft enough heard the adage that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, I began my quest to hang on to my man. It turned out that my husband could have alternated between steak and potatoes, burgers, and tacos, and been perfectly happy, but in my early ignorance, I taught myself to cook, and to garden.

It has been a long cold winter, and finally the urge for growth has begun to tug at my soul. Shauna Neiquist says that our lives are really lived in the in between moments, you know the ones, the cracks in the routine, when we throw open the doors and welcome friends, when we slow down and see our children.  These are the moments we allow are selves to see God's grace, ever present, often overlooked.  I am a creature of routine; I have a hard time making space for moments like these, but after all, the only reason for a clean house is the peaceful feeling in the after, and the ability it gives to throw open the gates.  In this winter I have been dormant in my spirit, renewing and growing, but nestled tight into my family and home. This lent has been for me about creating space, a space I so often fill with routine minutia and trivial pursuits, but God has called me to open up that space for Him, for meaning, for joy. With spring is awakening a desire to connect with the people who matter, to open heart and home, to laugh, to listen, to feed people simply with the work of my hands. No show off meals, just good home cooking, starting with our small group Easter celebration, I am going to have people around my table once a month.  I am going to hunt down those in between moments in which our lives our lived, and in them, and in the growth of the earth, I will meet God, and I will remember his glory. Come Friends, and eat with us.