February 2025 (Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2)
Dear Friends ~ This afternoon while slicing onions and tossing them into a pan, the realization washed over me that in four decades I've eaten more than (at this point I pulled up the phone calculator, allowing the onions a few slow minutes to soften in the oil) 14,000 evening meals. While I do my fair share of cooking these days, it's safe to say that I've personally prepared only a small fraction of those many, many dinners. If I haven't cooked all that food that sustained and satiated me, I wondered, who has?
TRAVELERS WELCOME
Remain here with me
Watch and pray,
Watch and pray
We must love them both—those whose opinions we share, those whose opinions we don't share. They've both labored in the search for truth and have helped us in finding it.
Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.
there is pain.
And where there is pain,
there is story.
And where there is story,
there is understanding,
and misunderstanding,
listening
and not listening.
May we — separated peoples, estranged strangers,
unfriended families, divided communities —
turn toward each other,
and turn toward our stories,
with understanding
and listening,
with argument and acceptance,
with challenge, change
and consolation.
Because if God is to be found,
God will be found
in the space
between.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.