Healthy Additions and Purposeful Subtractions

Tater-tot hotdish.

Green bean casserole.

Deviled eggs.

Jello salad.

Special K bars.

At a goodbye party at my mother's church in Minnesota, the tables were covered with food I remembered eating as a child. I gladly added some fried chicken and filled my plate.

When I confessed I did not keep cream of mushroom soup in my pantry in Arizona, several women exclaimed, "But what do you eat?", truly puzzled by someone raised in the Midwest who didn't still adhere to the Holy-Grail-ingredient of cooking.

In Minnesota, people love you with food. I attempt to do this in Phoenix, but I am in kindergarten compared to these experts, who, when words fail and they don't know what to say, show up at your front door with a casserole, some homemade rolls and brownies for dessert. The gooey kind. With chocolate chips or caramel running all over the plate.

During my 30 Days of Thankfulness Challenge, as I sit down to write three things I am thankful for each day, I continually find myself wanting to write about food.

The still-hot banana nut bread brought by a friend.

The coconut pineapple Thai rice (the secret ingredient being cashews) filling the kitchen with Asian spices.

The simple, hearty potato soup crowded with fall vegetables simmering on the stove.

I do not consider myself a "foodie", always trying new recipes and new foods, but I find joy in loving people in my life with nourishing food as they sit around my table. It is not about what is fixed - whether frozen pizza or a three-course meal, but it is in the sharing and loving and living that happens as we disconnect from things and to-do lists and reconnect with each other.

It is about gathering.

Whether we say goodbye to a friend as they move to Arizona, or bring a casserole to someone who just had surgery or celebrate a new baby or a wedding - our lives involve food.

In the book, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist, she writes, "Food is the thing that connects us, that bears our traditions, our sense of home and family, our deepest memories, and, on a practical level, our ability to live and breathe each day. Food matters."

Niequist quotes my favorite theologian, Winnie the Pooh:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

I can't say I ever have had Pooh's deep appreciation for food, but this summer I had the opportunity to enjoy a different perspective as we vacationed in Peru. People don't choose Peru as a vacation destination because of the food, but I did enjoy the less hectic lifestyle.

Peruvians enjoy around their tables.

We began the day at the hostel, Yanapanakusan, with people from around Europe, drinking our smoky water tea or coffee (from boiled water on a wood-burning stove) and slathering the fresh-daily bread with butter and jam. We talked about our daily plans in our limited use of each other's languages. When we ate out, waiters brought the main dish only after we sat around and conversed after finishing the soup. Nobody presented us with the bill until we asked for it.

I determined, then, to slow down my life's pace and savor this important act of gathering.

I came home to burying my dad's ashes, to major surgery and to hopping on a plane with the news of my mother's heart attack. Eating returned to food in styrofoam containers on a hospital chair hoping we'd catch the doctor when he made his rounds or to highly engineered food products while I typed updates on a computer screen. The only time this routine was broken was when Mom's friends came and took us out to eat, loving us again with the gift of gathering and food.

I have no idea what my family ate while I was gone, but I do know that Marie Callander pot pies and Hot Pockets have been removed from the shopping list.

Life was crisis. Chaos. Frenzy. Food was something to be snatched, not enjoyed.

When I returned home, my friends provided our family with four evening meals - love in a kettle of soup.

Currently, life is settling back into routine. A new routine. With additions to the family calendar. Additions of chemo and medical appointments and phone calls involving insurance and medical bills.

But oh, so much more than that.

My mom brings the addition of another generation in our family gathering around the table. The addition of a focal point for meeting. The addition of a reason to embrace life slowed-down.

But healthy additions only happen with purposeful subtractions.

This is where we find ourselves - on the learning curve of adding and subtracting, with the hopes of more time around the table.

I know it is the same in your home. Life is all about additions and subtractions. When families add new activities in the evening - clubs and sports and practices or the family grows with a new baby or shrinks when a student heads off to college - one of the first things to absorb the change is the gathering around the family table.

How do you manage the changes? I'd be curious to hear.

Today

on your journey of faith,

I pray you will connect around your table,

in your circle of large or small,

macaroni and cheese or grilled steak

,and you will be wise

in your additionsand subtractions.

__________________________

Update on my Mom:

Mom has transferred her land line number to her cell phone and dropped the cell phone number. Email her if you need that number. It's the number she and Dad had for 50 years. Not sure if it was the steroids or the chemo, but Mom had some relief from the pain after chemo last Wednesday. We went shopping Friday and negotiated the abundance of plain, black flats at DSW shoes and finally found a pair. But seriously, I think there were 200 pairs to choose from.

Sunday morning Mom woke with the pain spreading in a wider swath from her left groin to the center of her abdomen. Pain meds kicked in and she enjoyed a morning at church and at lunch at Mimi's Cafe, but yesterday afternoon was difficult. Mom is meeting a friend for coffee today and we hope to go to Tucson Wednesday to hold baby Madelyn and play trains with Micah.

>30 Day Thankfulness Challenge

1. Being loved with food.

2. Pain medication.

3. Additions and subtractions.