Memorable Meals

I like to cook. Some people, I know, absolutely hate to cook. But I absolutely LOVE to cook. It's not only a necessity but it's a creative thing to do. I follow recipes for baking, but often end up "doing my own thing" when trying to follow a recipe for other things - usually because I find that I don't have all the ingredients called for. I'm not afraid to "dump this in" or "sprinkle some of that on", etc. It USUALLY turns out fine. Today, for instance, was a cool day again, so I was in the mood for chili. I had most of the ingredients on hand, but was missing "cumin" which, for me, gives chili that "chili" flavor mostly. However, today I sprinkled in a couple of new spices and the usual chili powder, but minus cumin - and it turned out great.

My chili slow simmered on the stove all afternoon and the house smelled good. When John came in the door he was happy to smell the chili, too. We both enjoyed it for supper tonight.

As I was stirring that chili this afternoon I thought about other meals we've had over the years. Meals in this country, and in other countries. Meals from our own culture and meals from other cultures. I remembered an article I had written a few years ago for a magazine and went and dug it out. The title is: "Memorable Meals" ... and I will type it up here, or most of it (parts of it was seasonal, and I will leave those parts out).

"Memorable Meals"

My husband, John, once shared in one of his sermons stories of "memorable meals" we've shared with others, in various countries. Some were very elaborate meals - others, quite simple. As simple as one of my homemade- vegetable-soup-and-hot-biscuits meals are. Most of the meals we shared with others were quite delicious. Some were not so tasty.

The food itself, though, is not what makes the meal "memorable". The food is a small part (though a good part!) of the whole. A meal worthy of being remembered is a meal shared with others. A memorable meal is when people gather around a table to eat together. It is shared communication, enjoyment. It can be shared sorrow. It is love.

"Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fatted calf with hatred" (Proverbs 1:17/NIV Study Bible).

We find this to be true wherever we go. Accepting an invitation to sit at the table (or on the ground) and share a meal with someone, no matter how simple or how luxurious, is a key to communication, to understanding, to becoming friends. Barriers are broken down when we share meals with others. Others of another skin color. Others of another culture. Others with different opinions. Accepting one's invitation or extending an invitation for one to sit with us at our table shows our genuine interest in the other person. It shows that we want to take the time to get acquainted. It shows that we care.

We don't need to be wealthy to do this, either. We can serve a full-course meal. Or not. We can serve a bowl-full of shiny red apples with a large pitcher of ice-water. As that verse just said, "a pan of boiled turnips, served with love and caring, is much better than a thick, juicy steak served with hatred and anger" (MY interpretation!).

Accepting to eat with someone else, or having someone eat with us, is accepting and giving hospitality.

"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling" (I Peter 4:9/NIV Study Bible).

Practicing hospitality is a two-way street. I reach out to others, as I share a meal with them. In the same way, they share their lives with me when I accept their meal invitation. Hospitality is not only inviting people we know well - inviting friends and family is fine, but we need to also remember the down-and-out, the dirty and unkempt, the ones who are not so easy to love and bring into our homes.

We need to reach beyond our comfort zones. Through the years we have sat and eaten with the well-off, the well-dressed. And we have sat and eaten at the poorest of tables, sometimes sitting on the ground. Wealthy or poor didn't matter. We still shared hopes, dreams, sorrows, joys - as well as the food.

"Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13/NIV Study Bible).

When we lived in France we sometimes enjoyed five-to-six -course Sunday afternoon dinners, with late-afternoon coffee and tea and cakes and tarts. Delicious.

Memorable meals.

We have had kimchi and gingsing tea with Korean friends in their tiny, cramped apartment in France. There was the couscous and mint tea with our Algerian, Morrocan, and Tunisian friends. Wonderful little sweetened, cream-cheese-filled dumplings with our Polish friend (yes, she makes them herself). Coffee and special cakes with Ukranian friends. Parsley, lemon and couscous salad with a Lebanese friend.

Memorable meals.

During the worst drought ever in Mali, Africa, when food was so scarce that many people died daily, we sat on the sand floor of a small hut. Forming balls of hot rice with our fingers, from one common bowl, we dipped the rice balls into the other communal bowl of hot sauce. We didn't WANT to eat their food - they had so little. But they insisted. We did eat. Sharing not only their little bit of food, but also sharing in their lives. We communicated. We made friends. We ministered to them ... and they VERY MUCH ministered to us.

Memorable meals, indeed.

Just after the Romanian revolution we sat at the table of a very poor Christian farmer in one of the Romanian villages. We thankfully and humbly ate the cabbage soup and the stuffed cabbage leaves (delicious, too). The family stood quietly around the small wooden table, as is their custom with visitors, watching us eat. We were the well-fed eating the food of the very hungry. They were so pleased to have us at their table, in their little home - we could not refuse to eat. We ate. I will NEVER forget that meal - and the one small green glass of water that was put in the middle of the table for the four of us to drink from. I could get anxious about not having a whole set of matching drinking glasses, I am now ashamed to say ... while they had no qualms whatsoever in putting their one "best" little green glass in the middle of the table, to be shared by their four visitors. We ate. We drank. Our bodies were filled with the cabbage soup. And our hearts were filled with SO MUCH more than the cabbage soup.

Memorable meals.

This particular Romanian meal, perhaps, and maybe the one we ate sitting on the ground in the African hut, are two that stand out as VERY memorable meals. These meals are etched into our hearts forever.

American "table life", we discovered, after moving back from sixteen years in France, was being phased out in favor of fast-food places and other restaurants. Too many of us lose sight of the IMPORTANCE of memorable meals ... of shared tables. Many of us fail to see the importance of sharing meals with our children, our spouses, our friends and family, with Christians and non-Christians (who need to be told of God's love and ministered to), with the lonely and the destitute.

We need not travel far to find someone we could invite into our homes. We simply need to take the time to do so, beginning with those within our own circles and then reaching out farther. We are so blessed. We need to be sharing those blessings with others. We need to be sharing more and more meals ... in reality, sharing lives.

Memorable meals ... how many can YOU remember?

LOVE MONTH

THE LOVE MONTH ....

This is February, the "love month". Getting close to Valentine's Day ... another retailer's delight. Red and pink hearts are everywhere, not to mention the chocolate ones (yum!). Recipes in magazines show us how to tempt our true loves - both high- cal and low-cal ones. Take your choice.

It's not a bad thing, you know, to think about love. To really take a moment to stop and consider the truth and reality of love. Real love. Honest love. Truthful love.

The definition of love is, unfortunately, a tarnished definition in today's society. I think it began tarnishing back in the 60's, and went downhill from there. Oh, maybe I say "the 60's" because they were my teen and young adult years. But, then, who can really deny that "recreational sex" began back then. Well it's been around "forever", but it began in the 60's to be "accepted". "Love" began to mean "sex". It was a lie then and is still a lie. Sorry, but "sex" does NOT translate to "love"!

Sex within a loving marriage relationship (meaning one man and one woman!), is a great part of that relationship - a most satisfying way to express the love. It is not, though, the sum of the relationship; not even the most important, in my opinion, because the satisfied sexual experiences stem from understanding the true definition of love. If real love is not there, is not lived out between the married couple, as God intended, then sex has no real meaning. It DOES become purely "recreational" then. With anyone, at anytime ... or many "ones", many times. Feels good for the moment but without real love there is nothing there after the moment. Except waiting for the next moment.

My heart breaks for today's youth, so many of whom are believing the lie. They are constantly bombarded with the "sex=love" theme. We all are. Through today's music, movies, television, the internet, magazines, books.

It saddens me greatly to know that so many of our youth will never know what love really is; and that a man and a woman can actually join together in marriage, can stay married through all the ups and downs of marriage and can watch that love grow even stronger year by year. Yes! They can grow old together because they know real love. They have the real thing. They believe God's definition of love - not Hollywood's.

What is God's definition of love? In the Bible, in I Corinthians 13, in verses four through eight, the definition is found. We see what love is and what love is not. My pastor-husband recently preached on this in our church. I SO love God's definition of love:

"Love is patient, kind, doesn't envy, doesn't boast, isn't proud, isn't rude, isn't self-seeking, isn't easily angered, doesn't keep a record of wrongs, isn't happy with evil, IS happy for truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Now that's a definition of love I can stake my life on - and I have. With a man who has also staked HIS life on it. We both committed to that love when we married and are, almost forty years later, still committed to it.

I'm not saying we always, every day, live out this love-definition perfectly. We are human and we stumble. At times my love is not very patient, at times my husband's isn't. Many times, over the years, I was too easily angered. Or he was. But the "love never fails" part is true. In spite of any human failures, love never fails. Not REAL love.

While watching an Oprah show once (April 7, 2008), I quickly jotted down something she said, as she was rationalizing why she "lived together", instead of marrying her long-time "significant other". She said, "I wanted to be married so I could say to everybody, 'Look, someone loves me enough to want to marry me - then I got over that'".

Well, Oprah, someone loved ME enough to want to marry me, too - and I HAVEN'T gotten over that. I also loved HIM enough to want to marry him - and he hasn't gotten over that. Neither of us are ashamed or embarrassed to say so. We understood what real love is; and have come to understand it even more over the years of being together. We loved each other enough to sign that paper ... to stand before God and the world committing ourselves to each other - in love. In REAL love. And because it wasn't the "recreational sex" kind of love, we have lasted and will continue to last until one or both of us dies.

A man who understands real love is a treasure of a husband. Mine is. He was, and is, there through the illnesses, the surgeries. He has changed diapers, wiped up vomit, rushed a child to the emergency room. He has wrapped me in his arms and held me tightly as I sobbed through another of life's catastrophes. He has brought me beautiful flowers and wonderful fresh veggies he's grown in our garden. He has explained when I didn't understand. He has been patient when I wasn't. He has grieved with me and prayed during times of great pain and hurts. He has given me "just the right presents" (and sometimes the wrong ones!).

A perfect man? No. He, too, has his moments. He's been angry when he shouldn't have been. He's not always been patient. He can leave his socks in the living-room and spend too much time (according to me!) in his workshop. But God spoke the truth when He said, "love never fails". REAL love never fails. In spite of our imperfectness, when we understand what love really means, then we KNOW that love never fails.

So let's celebrate Valentine's Day. Let's take time to reflect on love. I am a Christian, and I love and believe in God's definition of love. Even if I weren't a Christian, though, I don't think I would find a better definition of love than God's.

Let's tell our youth that love and marriage CAN still "go together"। That, yes, you CAN love for a lifetime। Yes, you CAN stay married and grow old together। And you CAN actually enjoy doing so! Let's give our youth another version of sex, too - that it CAN be exciting and fun and warm and loving even in a marriage। (Marriage is not the dead-end of all things "fun"!) Those of us who are experiencing happy, real-love marriages need to speak up about it. We need to let our youth,especially, know that it's not just Hollywood or Oprah's versions of marriage that exists. Let's tell Oprah and Hollywood that "yes, someone loved me enough to want to marry me - and, no, I've NEVER gotten over that!"