Maundy Thursday

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This is the devotion I wrote for the Hollywood UMC's Lenten booklet this year:

I Corinthians 11: 23 – 26

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Food and church have always been linked for me. I grew up attending potlucks, UMM brunches, pancake suppers, UMW salad luncheons, spaghetti fundraisers, and eating my share of funeral potatoes (cheesey potatoes with a potato chip topping that go well with funeral ham). And these meals always had the same thing in common: during them I was in community with my family. But not just my immediate family, my mother and father and sister, like a normal mealtime, but with my extended family, my church family. And this shaped me into the person I am today. It taught me that meals shared with loved ones are never just about the food. They’re also about the laughter, the tears, the arguments and the stories. They’re about sharing your life, sharing your heart. They’re about remembering what’s important in life.

Jesus knew this last supper, recounted in I Corinthians, was important. He tried to share that with His family, His disciples. Did they understand? It’s hard to really know. Do we ever understand what’s important at the time? Do we ever look around when sharing leftovers with our family or eating a burger at In and Out with friends and realize how very special this moment really is? Do we give those intimate times of community the importance they deserve? No. We eat and drink and laugh and then wash the dishes. I wonder if the disciples remembered Jesus’ wish as they cleared the dishes and washed the cups: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

As we move through the next few days, enduring Good Friday so we can get to the celebration of Easter morning, I want to remember Jesus’ words. I want to remember them whether I’m dipping my bread in the grape juice on the first Sunday of every month in worship or I’m sharing a can of soup with my sister or I’m chatting over cheeseburgers at Mel’s with friends after church. I want to remember that each meal, each moment, shapes my life, my relationship with Christ. And that His words are a reminder and a blessing.

Prayer:

Dear Lord,

Help us to remember you are with us, not just in the pews at church but at dinner tables and breakfast spots and even in our cars when we’re chugging energy drinks to make it to the next appointment. Help us to remember to remember you too.

Amen.

A Community Celebration

The Queen Anne Block Club!

Last Thursday we had our regularly scheduled Queen Anne Block Club meeting (we call it Neighborhood Watch usually but technically, we don't do patrols or run down criminals so...). We'd canceled our meeting in February because that was the week that L.A. was being terrorized by that ex-cop who was going after police officers and their families. I'd talked to our Senior Lead Officer, LAPD Officer Ruben, several times that week and we'd decided that cancelling our meeting was best because he couldn't be out without a partner and there wasn't anyone available to attend the meeting with him. Also? The police were a wee bit busy protecting each other, themselves and oh yeah, the city. So we took a break.

Our Senior Lead Officer and his Captain

It was during those conversations that Ruben told me he's getting married in March. I congratulated him and he promised he wouldn't miss our meeting. He's been engaged for a while now so this was no surprise. However, I immediately began plotting a surprise. I know I've written about my neighbors before and this harkens back to that. One thing Angela and I have thought about most when we've considered moving (and if you know our trials at Abbey Place, you know how often that is) is that we'll miss our community. We've been a part of this neighborhood watch group since day one. We know the people who come from blocks away and we only catch up once a month or once every other month. But we do catch up. We can stop and say hello at the grocery store and we can wave when we pass each other on the street. I love that. It reminds me of home.

So our surprise? A little party for Ruben's upcoming wedding, a celebration of him and the work he's done for our community. We invited his Captain and sent some emails and gathered some help from willing group members and voila! instant party!

Three layer butter cake with chocolate frosting!

We went over the usual information Thursday night. We discussed the burglaries and car thefts. We talked about the new Ross going in down the street. We talked about how the city's working to help the homeless on our street corners. Then, we had cake. We took group pictures. We passed around hugs. We laughed and chatted and just had a good night. We all stayed late and no one seemed to mind. Why? Because we're a community. And we like each other. I love that.

Bean Soup

I learned early on in life that if my family (and friends count as family) is gathered, there will be food. Sometimes there will pizza and salad and breadsticks from our favorite carryout. Sometimes there will be homemade lasagna dinners and Baked Alaskas or hams and turkeys and way too much of everything. Occasionally there will be a simple plate of cookies or bread and coffee. Always coffee (to the extent that I own a Mr. Coffee machine and I don't drink coffee daily or ever, when I'm at my house). But there's always food.

And no one was better suited at this mixture of food and family then my Grandma MacDonald. There were always Hydrox cookies in the crystal jar (similar to Oreos but different, and oddly, better when I ate them at Grandma's house) or sour cream cookies with the raisin in the middle. Or toasted cheese sandwiches after we worked in the yard. Or mixed veggies from the freezer, heated in the microwave, that went with every dinner. She always had food and I truly believe that's what brought us together a lot of the time. Family dinners. Celebrations. Long breakfasts when out-of-town guests were readying to leave for home. (Her homemade waffles were a favorite of, well, all of us.)

So last summer I asked my mom if I could have all of Grandma's recipes. Her boxes and books and papers thrown together in a folder. Some were singed from where Angela had caught the recipe book on fire once on the stove. Some were scribbled with so many notes we never did figure out which version was best. But I collected them and then spent the next six months with my Mom and Angela sorting, organizing, typing and organizing them into one book. One book we had printed and shared with family and friends at Christmas. I love the idea that Grandma's recipes (some even in her own handwriting) are sitting there on my shelf, just waiting to be used. And use I have...

The first recipe I made from the book was Grandma's bean soup. I don't remember eating it a lot when I was younger but we'd have it when there was leftover ham or it was cold for months on end and we'd already gone through the potato soup and vegetable soup recipes multiple times. So this winter I set to making bean soup.

It turns out, it's rather easy. A little prep, a little stirring and a lot of simmering. And voila! a wonderful meal that's surprisingly inexpensive (we even found a clearance piece of ham at Target! Froze half for another batch and the pot of soup became even cheaper!).

As we sat down to eat that first bowl of bean soup a few weeks ago I couldn't help but think about Grandma. About each time she'd made soup or a roast or a pot of spaghetti and how it brought us all closer together. I love that something as simple as food, something we all need anyway, can do that. I love that.

Neighbors

Growing up in a small town we knew our neighbors well. Some of them had been my family's neighbors for generations. Others were new to the neighborhood but they didn't stay new for long. We knew all the kids, they all knew us and everyone played everywhere.

Neighbors became extended family. They babysat us and cared for us. They put band-aids on skinned knees and fed us the food from their refrigerators. They wiped away tears and helped make mudpies. We were family.

When I moved away in college, my relationship with my neighbors changed. There was the sorority house on one side and on the other? A family who never made eye contact or wanted anything to do with a bunch of college kids. In grad school neighbors were a crap shoot as apartments were changed frequently and a 'hello' at the mailboxes was usually the extent of our conversation. In Arizona, well, neighbors didn't socialize. The apartment complex we lived in was all one floor, spread out and full of people from all walks of life. Everyone stayed inside and the pool, where you might think we'd socialize, was almost always empty. The surface of the sun doesn't help create lasting relationships with the people next door.

But when Angela and I moved to Los Angeles we settled right in the heart of the city. In a neighborhood with a Block Club, schools, parks, a library, and lots of people. In fact, we moved onto a cul-de-sac where we promptly met many of our co-habitators. Almost five years later, most of us still live on the same street. We smile and wave, stand outside and shoot the breeze, and occasionally, enter each others homes for cookies, coffee and conversation (sometimes even champagne!).

I was thinking about these people recently when we toyed with the idea of moving. We are having landlord issues again and frankly, would like a place with heat and AC. But those are mostly pipe dreams. Dreams that were put to rest again (though not forever) yesterday when Ang opened the front door before we left for church and found a bag on the doorknob. That familiar brown bag from Noah's bagels. Every Sunday morning our neighbors Bill and Betty, both in their 80s, head out to the farmer's markets, the shops, and wherever else they can find to explore. And about once a month or so, they come back with two blueberry bagels for us. Sometimes Betty knocks on the door, sometimes she leaves them hanging on the doorknob. Either way, they bring a smile and a reminder that we have great neighbors. (Also, no idea why they're always blueberry but Angela quickly learned to like blueberry bagels, which she hadn't liked before!)

And then today, I was thinking about neighbors again as I've spent most of the day reading my neighbor's memoir. Mary is in her 80s as well and has spent about 15 years writing the story of her life. She found out I'm a writer and well, long story short, I'm doing some editing for her. And guess what? I'm loving it. I first went into the job thinking, okay, let's just do this, but now, I'm hooked. I can't wait to read the next chapters!

Neighbors. People who live in such close proximity to us we often hear their arguments, their tantrums, the intimate details of their lives. People who in turn, affect us, usually when we least expect it.

The End of an Era

I still remember the year my family got a VCR for Christmas. I don't remember the date exactly but I remember when it happened. It was a huge box, a big deal for our family. Big Christmas presents weren't the norm. There were no cars or diamond rings or anything you'd see in TV commercials. So this was exciting. A movie machine.

I grew up in a small town outside of Detroit and we had one movie theater, that played one movie usually twice a night. Occasionally we'd get to go see a movie - sometimes a cartoon, sometimes a family film, or if Grandpa Jim was taking us something like Speed. Oh god, I felt so grown up eating this giant bag of popcorn (and I'm not talking extra large bucket - I'm talking BAG. Like a garbage bag size. He'd somehow convinced the concession stand workers to give us the old popcorn they were going to throw away and we got to eat popcorn all night and he still had three-quarters of the bag to take home with him), watching that guy get stabbed in the neck at the beginning of that movie. What a great day. And sometimes we'd venture out to Brighton or Lansing and catch something at the multiplexes there, though that was usually with Grandma MacDonald or family friends.

I still remember seeing Harry and the Hendersons with my Dad, Angela, Mike, Ben and Liz Roxberry. Or going to see Alladin with my Mom or Down Periscope with Grandma MacDonald, Angela, John and Nicole (Grandpa worked on a submarine while in the Navy and she thought it was perfect that this submarine movie was showing so she took all the grandkids to see it - I love that memory of that afternoon in Lansing).

But back to that VCR. What a present. We were all so excited. But guess what? We didn't have any tapes to play. So the day after Christmas I remember going to Kroger with my Dad and buying our first home video, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. That was an exciting day. Over that next week our neighbor, Roger, who had HBO and all the movie channels, made us stacks of copies of movies. He picked out cartoons for Angela and I. He snuck in some horror and R-rated stuff for Dad that eventually, in middle and high school, Angela and I would both watch. And he included a little film called Iron Eagles III. Back then I had no idea what a trilogy was or what made a good movie for that matter. And since then, I've not seen IE3 again. But I remember, watching it in the afternoon, on our couch, with my Dad, was pretty cool. We got to watch movies at home! An awesome revaluation for a kid who had only seen a handful of movies up to that point.

I've had a number of VCRs over the year since. I've upgraded to a DVD player and I've even started buying movies and television shows on iTunes and storing them in the cloud. But I've never been able to part with my VHS tapes even though I haven't watched them years. Yet they each hold special memories. I remember my mom buying Jerry MaGuire for me when I got honor roll one quarter in school. I got to pick any gift I wanted and I chose that movie that made me so happy the first time I saw it. I remember watching Ever After time and time again in college, laughing with my roommates ("Go catch a chicken!" became a favorite insult of ours.) and sharing that old broken down couch at Brewer House. My copy of The Story of Us became worn out I showed it so many times to my classes of Interpersonal Communication. I used that movie to teach the entire textbook. God bless Rob Reiner and company.

But as it always happens, VHS tapes became outdated and DVDs took over. I replaced my copy of The Story of Us with a DVD yet kept the old copy because, well, I'm sentimental. And maybe I'd need it! (Never did.) As we started collecting DVDs, I knew it was only a matter of time. And then this year, when we got an Apple TV that allows us to watch every movie ever shown on HBO, Netflix, et cetera, I knew it was time. Time to get rid of the VCR.

And yes, it still worked. The DVD player in the same machine, the combo thingy, didn't work anymore. So we had to buy a new one. And it's small and sleek and hides behind the TV. The VCR never did that. So we boxed up the VHS tapes and the machine and took it to Goodwill. I often wonder if anyone ever scooped it up or if it will sit there on the shelf until the space is needed and they throw it in the dumpster.

But I'll never forget how I felt when we first got to watch a movie at our house. What a concept! Long before I could watch one on my phone wherever I wanted, we gathered together, as a family usually, to spend a few hours together, in our house, enjoying each other and the movie. I loved that. I still do. (It's just easier now and the tape never comes spitting out of the machine and you have to spend twenty minutes feeding it back into the tape. Ah, the joys of technology!)