We break bread

One morning this week, my small daughter pointed out the window and said excitedly, “Look, it’s snowing!” Had her comment come two weeks ago, she would have been right, for we did wake up that Saturday morning to find an inch of snow draped over the tree limbs and frosting the lawn. But my daughter was seeing flowers, not snow. In the warmth and sun of the past week, our dogwood trees have at last plucked up the courage to unfurl their lovely white blossoms in earnest. My good husband has for many years wanted to see the dogwoods bloom here on the mountain, to be present for the fleeting stretch of days when they grace this place with their beauty. And here we are.

It has now been seven months since we left Tanzania to begin once again at the wondrous, wearying task of building community in a new place. This patch of Pennsylvania woods comes with unique advantages; we have family here who know us and love us, and a church family filled with people who cheered me on from childhood to adulthood. I have childhood friends here who are now mothers and fathers with children of their own, to keep me and my children company. But even with such traveling mercies, the road of starting over is always a hard one. Being known to another person is different from being known by another person—and I recognize that only shared history, space, and time can build the kind of knowing-and-being-known for which I long. Like the intrepid dogwood trees, I also know that the only way forward is forward. If there is to be any fruit, there must first be flowers. And those flowers must open, vulnerable to cold and wind and rain, throwing themselves out into the dance of life and death and life again.

In the church calendar, this is the season of Eastertide, when we remember the fleeting stretch of days when the resurrected Jesus was present with his disciples here on earth, before he went back to his Father again. The stories of Eastertide are some of my favorites in all the gospels. Jesus, on the same day he appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden, also walks with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, allowing the words of the prophets to fall like rain before breaking bread and opening the eyes of his friends. Jesus lets a scared and stubborn Thomas feel his wounds and scars, eats fish with a roomful of stunned disciples, and offers a broken Peter not only forgiveness but a new purpose, a calling, a ministry. Jesus gives a few of his weary fisherman-friends one last exceptional catch of fish and then waits for them on the beach, cooking breakfast over a fire.

One of the reasons I think I love the Eastertide stories is that most of them involve food. Jesus reveals truth while tearing bread, offers proof of life by eating fish, and grants comfort by cooking breakfast. And even as I have wondered over these months what it means for us to begin again at building community, I see the wisdom of Jesus. In times of transition, we still must eat; we always must eat. So why not pull up a few more chairs to the table, open our door to both friends and strangers, and invite the kind of knowing that comes with sharing food together?

Our family has always enjoyed being hospitable. In the little green house we called home for six years while my husband was in graduate school, we hosted friends for play-dates and birthday parties and small group meals. Our “dining room table” was a small patio table that fit exactly four plates and nothing more, so our guests balanced plates of food on their knees and gamely sat on the couch or the floor. That house was so small I could vacuum the entire place using just one centrally-located electrical outlet. And we filled the rooms right up to bursting, filled them up with wild children and kind guests whose laughter and songs and prayers made it a gracious place indeed.

The big brown house we now call home is a spacious place indeed. My grandmother was a woman of passion and vision, and she loved few things more than gathering large groups of people together for food and conversation. My grandfather was a gifted builder and a hard worker, and so when they planned a house to retire in, they built it generously. The dining room table seats twelve people comfortably, and the kitchen table can fit six more. We have a back porch with two tables to eat around as well, and this is just on the upper floor! My husband and I laugh because the same vacuum cleaner that reached every room in our little green house can’t even reach across the living room here. But the space is a blessing, and already we've delighted in the ease with which we can host lunch with my extended family, and meals where the children far outnumber the adults, and large life group gatherings. In a season in which I still grieve over the loss of my grandparents, I feel that to open the doors of this house honors their memory more than anything else I do.

I don’t know what Jesus said to his disciples as they enjoyed breakfast together by the sea. But it seems that some of his last words to his friends are manna for me as well. Like the disciples, I am invited to draw close, to hear the words of Scripture, to touch the scars and understand that death is part of the journey to life. Like Peter, I am invited to feed Jesus’ sheep and to wait for his Spirit to speak. Wherever I call home, I am invited to love, invited to witness, and invited to remember my Lord whenever I break bread.