Paper Bags & Tin Foil

The two-way street of hospitality in the age of staying home.

“They shared their meals with great joy and generosity.” Acts 2:46b

On the second day of quarantine, Cory’s parents pulled into the driveway and handed us three plastic packages of frozen hamburger. The previous day, a blustery Saturday which had, overnight, taken on the oozy, disorienting air of a calendar in freefall, Bubu showed up with a cardboard flat of eggs.  Later, a young neighbor rang our doorbell and passed us a grocery bag of tamales, still steaming in their husks.

Next came the cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, bite-sized Mennonite “peppernuts.” Then styrofoam containers of homemade Pad Thai. Yellow grapefruits the size of fists. Mexican pan dulces. An entire meal in gallon-sized Ziplocs, ready for the oven. A warm loaf of bread wrapped in a tea towel. There have been bags of coffee beans and tea, a paper bag of fancy organic apples left on the porch, a check in the mail for emergency take-out, even a tiny, hand-glazed saucer from one of our potter friends, perfect for another late-night snack. Our eating habits embodied an air of adventure. Is chocolate cake with peppermint frosting an adequate dinner during a pandemic? What should we do with the Tupperware bowl of perfectly shredded pork roast? (Enchiladas, always enchiladas.)

For a while, I tried to remember to snap a photo of each offering, cataloguing the love I felt with reverence. Somewhere along the way, I stopped. Maybe the practice got lost in the slog of long days. More likely, I just got used to it, overly confident in my ability to remember this procession of gifts, these mile-markers through the wilds.

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Every Sunday our church bows together to pray the Lord’s prayer. For those thirty seconds, we are one voice, a turbulent sea of longing and belief. Complicated women, men in crisp button-down shirts or with neck tattoos, babies and grandmas, the kingdom of God with red-rimmed eyes. “Give us this day our daily bread,” we beg.

Alone in our homes, we excavate this familiar prayer, prying it loose from the corridors of memory and holding it in our hands like the loaf of sourdough left steaming on our stoop.

The past few months have been an object lesson on receiving manna.

“Manna, bread given new every morning, was sent with strict instructions: no hoarding was allowed, no one was allowed to stockpile, to sell, to incur debts against their neighbors. If people tried to set up a black-market manna system, they awoke to see their stockpiles stinking and melted, covered with maggots. Those years in the wilderness with that sweet, ethereal bread was a forty-year relearning process, a reset on what the world is supposed to look like, how societies are supposed to be ordered. How living together equally, no one taking more than their fair share.” – The Myth of the American Dream by D.L. Mayfield

This morning I woke earlier than I needed to. Creeping out into a blessedly sleeping house, I pulled out the small loaf of cheddar onion bread handed to me by a co-worker on my way out the door last week. A bright orange sticker on the paper sleeve announced its budget status. “$2 off!” Manna. Meant to be shared and eaten quickly.

I sliced it into thin ovals, leaning them against each other in the toaster slots for support, smearing their craggy surfaces with cream cheese, carrying them to where the sun was breaking through the curtains and warming the room.  

The atmosphere is swimming with opinions about where to go from here. Timelines and apprehension, anger and hope. Might I suggest as a good next step that we take stock of what we’ve got and package some of it up to share, tapping one domino of connection and sending it tumbling into the next?

In the swirl of uncertainty, dinner is our North Star. Breakfast is our compass. Some of us have more than we need. Some of us rattle with anxiety over what will keep us fed. All of us need to believe we aren’t alone.

As the order of our days changes yet again, let us remember that we are tasked with imagining a better order, one where we are bound together through the thick of it, falling together, receiving our day-old daily bread with gladness and scanning the horizon for the moment when it is our turn to fill the plate, tear the tin-foil, and pass it on.

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This & That

I’ve been reading a ton lately (more fiction than usual - yay!) and tracking my reads in my Instagram highlights. (I don’t review what I’m reading, but I can tell you, I only finish a book if I enjoy it.)

A couple of books that I loved released this month. Both are brilliantly written, push against important things, and ask the right questions. Cannot recommend them highly enough.

The Myth of the American Dream by D.L. Mayfield  

This Too Shall Last by K.J. Ramsey

I also got to chat with the That Makes Total Sense podcast. Have a listen!   

I’m talking *A LOT A LOT* about food over at The Soup (the paid portion of my newsletter) so if you enjoy that kind of thing, follow along below! Regardless, we all gotta eat, yeah? During this stay-at-home season I’ve craved carbs and comfort food galore. I finally mastered risotto and it’s SO much easier than I imagined. It takes a bit of time and attention. You can’t just walk away from it for twenty minutes. But I’m convinced you can’t mess it up. AND it’s a beautiful blank canvas for toppings…like mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic! See what you think about this basic risotto.

Until next time, may Mother Nature’s snow reserves finally be depleted (hear our prayer,) may we get used to the feeling of masks on our faces, may the libraries all open as unto the Lord, and may the lilacs swell and burst, reminding us again of the true scent of purple.

Love & salsa,

Shannan

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