The Dining Room Table

Boys are growing into men here in our home, and knees are knocking together under our little kitchen table.  Feet find their way onto feet, and elbows can't leave well enough alone, so we're moving.  Not from our home, but out of our little kitchen nook and into the spacious dining room.  The boys have been asking me to serve dinner at our long oak table, with the chandelier like a canopy of sparkle overhead.  But I've balked these last few months, knowing it will add more work to my load.  I balked and I crammed and I nagged my way through dinners, ordering, "Stop touching one another, and keep your legs under your chair."  

Then last night we visited a friend's home, and sat down at their new dinner table.  Brand-spankin', never before used, without one scrape or stain. Long planks of untreated wood set with burlap place-mats and mason jars for water glasses.  Miniature pumpkins toppled from ceremic decorative urns as our centerpiece.  How special to be there with our beloved friends, christening their table with our conversation and laughter.  As my dear friend's husband jokingly threatened to never have guests over again if we splatter salad dressing, I thought of the generous love required when giving our best.  But we do give our best away to those we prize.  China and chocolates and the dining room table, to those we cherish, value and esteem.

And I looked at my children, who are my best, recognizing immediately the way I hold them at arm's length from the center of my hospitable heart.  Not always, but when it requires greater effort on a day-in-day-out basis, I'm quick to say, "No, and keep your hands to yourself."

But today I'm doing something new - I'm spreading out our holiday favorites on the table cloth of my generous heart.  I'm throwing a christening party on a Tuesday night!  Not because we're hosting special guests, but because I'm purposing to start treating my most intimate family members like the guests of honor that they are.  Prized in my heart, prized around my table.  Sure there will be more sweeping up rice and polishing off handprints, but we do that for those we love.  It's part of the gift giving.

Laying out placemats that smell of cedar and cloth napkins will require another load of wash and a hot iron in the morning, but I'm throwing this mid-week celebration, with homework for dessert, just because its time to invite my children to the grown up table.  So I'm heading out to the garden now to gather the last glory-blooms of fall, every single stem, for tomorrow I'll be pruning rose bushes and hydrangeas all the way down. There's no temptation to skimp, when pruning is just around the bend.  I'll give them all as a laid down offering on the dining room table, because I want to do the learning without the painful pruning in my own life.

This Lesson:

 It is time to treat my children as the most valued guests in our home

- guests that do the dishes, but guests just the same.

They are our little people for such a short time.  And we are honored to have their little britches seated round our table for these limited number of years.  And when we send them off, we want to send them off with memories of family dinners, chocolatey desserts, good conversation, and enough elbow room.

Join me at my party... though you'll be loving your family from your dining room table, as I do well loving my family from mine.  But join me, won't you?  Won't you?  Though we grow weary from this continual feast... let's commit to party on!

Super Easy Pork Tenderloin Recipe

Every woman has her go-to recipes when guests are coming over, as well as a short list of easy busy school-night dinners, holiday dishes, and family favorites.  This dish meets every one of those criteria.

Dress it up, dress it down.  Like a pair of jeans - casual with a tank top and scarf, ready to wow with boots and a little sparkle.  That's this recipe.  Serve it up quick for family when you're pressed for time, or on china when friends come to call.

Peppercorn-Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Serves 4-5, double for guests

Ingredients -

5 TBS. coconut oil

3 small sweet potatoes (or ten red potatoes), thick slices or cubes

1 /2 white onion, long strips

1 bunch asparagus, 2-3" segments

Trader Joe's Peppercorn-Garlic Pork Tenderloin

(Regular grocery stores have their own variations on this theme.  The important thing is "pork tenderloin".  Take a few extra home and store them in the freezer.)

Heat up that cast iron skillet your Mother-in-Law gave you last Christmas.  Get the coconut oil steaming hot then brown that tenderloin, 2 minutes each side.  Next, add onion wedges and potatoes next to the meat.  Coat them in the oil, and transfer skillet to 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until internal meat temperature hits 170 degrees.  I often throw asparagus on top for the last 5 minutes.

This dish is complete in and of itself.  No need for a side dish!  Though a salad and some crusty bread never hurt anyone.Oh... and pears too.  Pears are fabulous this time of year!

Do try this recipe and let me know if it becomes one of your staples.

Eat up,

Wen

When hospitality comes sliding down the pew

1999 Sunday sun streamed in through stained glass windows.  Feeling warm and whole I worshiped in the comforting embrace of that familiar pew. Sinking down in the musty velvet seat like a diamond in an antiquated jewelry box.

Then suddenly trembling bones and arctic chills shook me something fierce; hit me like a glacier in the safe harbor of my sanctuary. Wrapping my cardigan tight I tried to dispel the shivers that came up from beneath my skin rather than against it.

Confused I looked for an open window or a culprit vent, but found instead a woman, frail with strings of unkept hair falling from her carelessly spun bun. She was my senior, by 20 years at least. I was barely past childhood, though old enough to know the cold I felt was spiritual not physical, purposed to blow me to her side that she might receive warmth.

But the sermon was starting up, and two pairs of knees separated us from one another, so as the pastor preached, I prayed for the one who wept a few yards down the row.  As the congregation listened, read, sang, stood up then sat back down, I shook like a leaf, moved by an unseen force.

When the doxology rang out and the church doors swung wide, I felt a hand upon my shoulders, holding me down in my seat. I wanted to run for the warmth of the Southern California sun, out on the patio with friends, but I shivered in my seat, glancing awkwardly down the bench at the one who remained bent and broken.

"If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.… (Dueteronomy 15:7-8)

Breathing deep I collected my things then slid down to her. She looked up but I didn’t smile – I didn’t want to pretend that her hurt could be fixed with upturned lips and apologetic eyes, so I simply took her hand and nodded.   Before I knew it we were crying together.

2015

15 years later, and I've finally fastened a label to that experience I had as a young woman holding tight to a stranger, shackled and undone.

Hospitality

When I slid down that pew, I collided with the very heart of Hospitality;

The crux, the Latin root, Hostis, meaning stranger.

In this Pinterest age of decorated mantles and color coordinated centerpieces,

we confuse Entertaining with Hospitality.

Hospitality is not a clean house.

Hospitality is rarely about clean guests.

Hospitality is messier, more sacrificial.

Hospitality is giving up warmth for someone freezing on the outside;

The warmth of your heart and the warmth of your hearth, the warmth of a meal or simply your embrace.

Sometimes we can plan those collisions,

other times we merely obey the push,

give into the pull, and fall headlong into love.

Dear Lord, shake us from the comfort of our cocoons, our pews, our homes, and push us by the power of your Holy Spirit out and into your aching world.  We pray, Amen.

Glazed Salmon

The day before our wedding festivities began, my mother gave me a recipe book.  There were many more I'd open on the other side of our honeymoon, but this one came from mom, there in her kitchen, before I said "I do." I leafed through and immediately decided I'd cook for us that night.  I chose a recipe and went to the grocery store down the street.  Walking the aisles with my freshly painted toe nails, I gathered salmon, asparagus, and Basmati rice.  And when I got back to her kitchen I began to prepare my last meal as a single woman.

What a way to go out!  The salmon tasted more like candy than fish, asparagus sprinkled with parmesan cheese, and Basmati rice... need I say more?  But the whole over-arching experience, there in my Mama's kitchen, was more than a culinary success, it was a rite of passage.   So I celebrated it fully by recording the event on page 22 in "Cooking Light's Light and Easy Meals."

"8/2/01 - Wonderful!  Last dish I made as a single woman."

I didn't know it at the time, but this would become a habit of mine when gathering with family and friends around the table.  And so I write in my recipe book like I write in the margins of my Bible.  Because it's a Holy affair - this bread breaking celebration we can life.

However, you might have noticed in the picture above, that 9 years of our lives are missing there.  And maybe 9 years are missing from the margin notes in your Bible too, because raising children is all-consuming.  But time with the Lord and time with His people is paramount and so we pick our Bibles up again and our recipe books too, because both feed hungry needy people.

While I knew I walked a rite of passage there in my mother's kitchen, before walking the aisle to be his wife, I didn't know how much this ritual of cooking would become a Holy foundation of fellowship in our new life together.  So important that we took our wedding guest-book and laid it down upon our dinning room table, asking every guest to write their name and the meal we shared together that first year.

"Sadly, the meaning of meal sharing is largely lost in the Christian community today. In the Near East, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness: the shared table symbolizes a shared life... For an orthodox Jew to say, “I would like to have dinner with you,” is a metaphor implying “I would like to enter into friendship with you.” Even today an American Jew will share a donut and a cup of coffee with you, but to extend a dinner invitation is to say: “Come to my mikdash me-at, the miniature sanctuary of my dining room table where we will celebrate the most sacred and beautiful experience that life affords–friendship."

 Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, 59-60

And so today I share this sweet meal with you.

Though I can't literally invite you all into my

mikdash me-at, I wish I could.

But I can invite you into the pages

of my recipe book.

Glazed Salmon

Ingredients

3 TBS low-sodium soy sauce

2 TBS brown sugar

1 TBS honey

1 tsp minced garlic

4 (4 oz.) salmon fillets

Preheat broiler

Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.  Microwave 1 minute, stirring after 30 seconds.

Place fish on a broiler pan, brush fish with sugar mixture.  Broil 8 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork, basting occasionally with remaining sugar mixture.

Yield: 4 servings

 2014 - My firstborn son's favorite recipe.

Labor Day Rest - for moms

It's Labor Day Weekend, Y'all!   Time to turn up the music, open wide the windows and enjoy perfectly temperate days!  BBQ some ribs, make a peach cobbler, float in the pool, and drink homemade lemonade.  Then wake up early and pack up the car for a sandy day at the beach.  Don't forget the surfboard and shovels, or the cooler heavy laden with drinks and grapes and sandwich meat.  Then Monday let's go for a bike ride as a family and peddle till our muscles ache and our brows drip health and happiness. At least  that's our relaxing agenda this long weekend before school starts up Tuesday.

Here's the nitty gritty truth about "LABOR DAY"...

It's a laborious prospect for Moms!

All this eating and going and sand ground into the seams of our hardwood floors.  Just getting ready sends my head to spinning.  In preparation I'm cleaning house today, making sure all the laundry is done, and planning fun meals and holiday snacks!  Out I go into the garden to gather late summer roses for each table, and hang the water colors our boys have painted over this long season of fun.

Ironically, this day that celebrates REST takes a whole lot of work!  Can I get an Amen from the choir heading to the grocery store this afternoon ?

Be Still and Know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

Personally I wonder if this spiritual challenge was ever intended for Moms' hearts!  But there's the spin:  The heart not the hands.  The heart, not the serving and the loving and the moving.  That can't always stop.  It's the heart.

The Heart

The heart that learns to rest in the whirling dervish we call motherhood, in the chaotic fun of holidays, in the constant roll of summertime's Yes, is the heart that gets to actually enjoy God amidst it all.  For our hands and our feet can't always be still, though stopping is so very good for us, but our meditating hearts that keep constant communication with a loving God allow our souls to rest... In Him.  Even as we prep another meal, and bring poolside a fresh picture of iced tea.

And so I offer you today, this challenge:

Be Still Your Soul!  

Let the strains of the ancient hymn lift up and renew your heart, when your hands are full of fresh towels.  Let the cease from striving message of God's Gospel rest, be manifested in your quiet heart and your joyful demeanor whilst you put graham crackers and marshmallows and chocolate squares together on a platter as the sun dips low.  And in the quiet spaces you literally find, or carefully make and take, breath in and out slowly and fully.  Right.  Where.  You.  Are.  Amidst the ones you are laboring for in love.  And lift up your heart.

It's a continual feast, this life.  I know.

And so, I leave you today with one of my favorite summertime salad dishes, received via text message from a friend of mine last Labor Day.  I share it with you here today.

Quinoa Salad

Mix together:

4 cups Rainbow Quinoa (cooked and cooled)

1 bell pepper; yellow, orange, &/or red (chopped into small pieces)

1 bunch green onions (finely sliced)

2/3 cup feta cheese crumbles

2/3 cup tomatoes (chopped)

1 avocado (either chopped and mixed in, or sliced and served op top)

Mix together for the dressing:

4 TBS Olive Oil

2 TBS Red Wine Vinegar

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp minced garlic

Add the dressing to the salad and mix it gently.  Personally, I don't use all of the dressing.

I often serve this alongside a medley of other salads, but it also goes wonderfully well with bbq chicken!

It is seriously the best!

And Best Rhymes with Rest!

So go and be Blessed!