Maundy Thursday 2008
Maundy Thursday is always my favorite
holy day
And I always talk about eating.
And often I get too long winded and go
on and on and people wonder when I’ll ever finish.
Something about ‘meals’ keeps me
talking beyond what is necessary.
So, this year I wrote it down so it
would be controlled and less than 10 minutes and you wouldn’t have
to wonder if I’d wandered off into some crack in my brain and
wouldn’t be back for a while!
Easter dinner is special in our home.
We aren’t surrounded by ‘family’ so we have invented a ‘family’
for holidays. We have friends who come to share our table on
Thanksgiving and Christmas and, most of all, for me, on Easter.
John will be there—a friend of mine
since college who lives in New Haven and is a Warden at Christ
Church. West Virginians through and through—John and I. We have a
patois that is Mountain Talk that few can follow if they didn’t
grow up in that lush and deserted place.
He’ll call me and say, “Hey,
Jem….”
And I’ll answer, “Hey, Jonn…”
and we’re off and running about the dogs that won’t hunt and the
crazy aunts and stuff no one else understands.
Jack and Sherry will be there—our
friends who we met when we lived in New Haven. They are
southerners—Virginia and South Carolina. They usually bring a
country ham and dandelion risotto for Easter dinner. But they’ll be
getting back from a trip to Italy and Greece and won’t have time to
cook this year.
I know John and Jack and Sherry as
well as I know myself. We rub against each other in ways that make
life make sense.
And Mimi will be there. My ‘princess’,
my love, my precious girl. She is nearing 30 but she is still my baby
girl. An hour with Mimi is like an eternity in heaven for me. I love
her so. She is so wondrous—did you know she has become a girl scout
leader in Brooklyn for young girls from the projects? She raises
money for the American Ballet Theater for a living, but she embraces
young girls who need a mentor to make her life meaningful. She is so
precious to me I can hardly speak of her without weeping. And she
will be at the table.
This year, we will have ‘family’.
Uncle Frankie and his son, Anthony—Bern’s favorite cousin, and
his daughter Francis and her life-partner Lisa will be at the table.
They hale from West Virginia but all live in Rhode Island now. They
will be there, bringing memories and stories that would otherwise not
be there.
And that is what the meal is about,
after all, the telling of stories to help us ‘remember’ and to
give us hope to go on. And we will eat the ham and the onion pie and
the deviled eggs and the salad and the scalloped potatoes and tell
the stories and be present—so remarkably present—to what is alive
and real and wondrous, even in the sad stories of Aunt Annie’s
death and the fact that Josh and Cathy and our granddaughters, Morgan
and Emma are in Taiwan this Easter and not with us. They will gather
around other tables—not to celebrate the resurrection because they
are either Buddhists or nothing at all—but they will gather around
a table to eat and tell stories and love each other and be present—so
present—to the heart of God.
That’s what this night is about. How
being around a table, sharing food, telling stories, loving each
other, hoping for the future, wondering what happens next….
That’s what this night’s about. A
table set and full of food. Family and friends gathered. Passing the
bread, sharing the wine….wondering what will happen next.
Because Jesus sat around that table so
long ago and shared his body and his blood with those he loved and
those he would never know.
Just sitting at a table, eating with
those you love, is a holy thing. A holy thing. A holy thing.
Remember that always. Remember that. Remember…
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