Around the Table

A few months ago, I received a mystery package in the mail containing a book I had been recently eyeing. After exhausting the list of all my mystery suspects, I accepted the gift as a crazy act of God. A few weeks later, I was on the phone with Mikey discussing food & community... how much of my life is centered around those 2 things. Only a brother would be so thoughtful as to send me a book without any semblance of knowledge of how much I love both this author and her latest read. So, in honor of Bread & Wine and Michael returning to Chicago for a week, I threw a dinner party in our backyard. Mango curry chicken, Christmas lights, fresh flowers, and a splash of wine (/ rum)... Community happens around the table and it is life-giving.

Friends and Food
My two favorite things

The best.

{photo cred: iphone by Todd}

"When you eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat. When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood every time, not just when the bread and wine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere - on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach. Some of my most sacred meals have been eaten out of travel mugs on camping trips or on benches on the street in Europe. Many of them have been at our own table or around our coffee table, leaning back against the couch. They've been high food and low food, fresh and frozen, extravagant and right out of the pizza box. It's about the table, and about all the other places we find ourselves eating. It's about a spirit or quality of living that rises up when we offer one another life itself, in the form of dinner or soup or breakfast, or bread and wine."

Shauna Niequist :: Bread & Wine