Yet again, I can’t believe it’s already December! With all that has happened this past year (go to our blog to read through our newsletters from January through now), I wonder if it actually all fit in one year, or if 3 have passed. One thing that comforts me is the rhythm that hums along each year. The new year can begin with everything from excitement to worry. Plans are made. Some of them happen with precision and gusto, some are turned on their heads, and some disappear. We experience the wave of emotions and thoughts that come with each event. And, yet – there is a new morning, a new week and a new year. As I recently heard a colleague pray, it is a new season, a new day “we have never seen before.”
The kitchen provides a similar rhythm. Our particular Shobi’s rhythm is lunch – Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The same pattern each week, but each day can feel new and different. . Come Friday in the kitchen, or December in the year, there is a sense of completion – what’s done is done. For all that came to fruition, give thanks. For all that didn’t go according to plan, we still give thanks.
December also brings Advent, the beginning of the church year as we await Christ’s coming as a sweet babe. In the midst of increased darkness, we welcome in a new year with the promise of the same rhythm of the year, but filled with new light of a new year we have never seen before. New meals we have not yet created or eaten. New friends we have yet to meet. New challenges we have yet to navigate. New joys we have yet to celebrate.
As a community we have brought together our gifts to keep the ministry rhythm of Shobi’s Table strong this past year, and we will continue to do so this coming year. Our hope is that our rhythm grows to include a fourth lunch day this year! With your help, and especially your prayers, we will follow the Spirit’s lead towards this goal. We step into this Advent with hope and trust that the rhythm of this new year will be full of new promise each day – new life that we have never seen before.
(For some extended thoughts on faith and food, check out Luther Seminary’s Faith+Lead November blog posts, including the one I wrote: Kitchen Parables that Aren’t in the Bible.)
In Christ,
Deacon Kari
Ps. Thank you to everyone who gave to From Scratch! Your gifts make the wheels of this ministry continue to turn and open new roads for us to travel. I am forever grateful.
With the holidays just around the corner, It’s time for family and cultural traditions. In the kitchens growing up from baking Christmas cookies with my grandma, to making homemade pizza when we put up the tree, there was always some tradition around Christmas and food. The best holiday season for me though was living in Mexico. You could not show up at an event in December without Ponche being served. A Christmas Punch simmered on the stove and served warm. When I think about community I think about this beverage, that keeps hands warm so people stay out and join in conversation, activity and community. I think a lot about the community we have here at Shobi’s and how we might be able to help foster those conversations in the cold with a beverage to help keep you warm.
Here is a Ponche Recipe from Oscar, a friend from Mexico.
