day seven: won't you be my neighbor?

Fred McFeely Rogers (A.K.A. Mister Rogers) passed away 9 years ago this week. As a fellow minister and cardigan-lover, I thought it appropriate to pay tribute to this legend of public television by being a good neighbor myself.

Hi, neighbor!

A young woman recently moved into the house behind ours, and another couple bought a house a few doors down. We have seen them around and met the woman behind us, Stephanie. We hadn't yet met the couple a few doors up, but we saw them when the house sold and when they moved in.

We thought we would do something to welcome them all to the neighborhood. So I stayed up late last night to bake chocolate chip cookies (sans nuts).

Chocolate chip cookies are my drug of choice. I'm addicted. I eat them just because they make me feel good. It doesn't matter whether they are homemade Tollhouse or store-bought break-and-bakes, I have no self-control. So after licking the mixing beaters, eating a few spoonfuls of dough, and downing half a dozen warm cookies out of the oven, I wrapped up some cookies to take to our new neighbors (leaving a few for breakfast this morning, of course).

We took the cookies by this afternoon, and both Stephanie and Brent (the man of the couple...the woman wasn't home) were very thankful.

This is the first time we've done something like this, although we've had lots of new people move into the neighborhood in the three years we've lived here. In fact, most of the time we don't meet them until months after they've moved in, when we just happen to see each other outside in our yards or walking. And I don't think we're the exception.

Why is it that we don't make a point to introduce ourselves? What is it that makes a "comfortable distance" so comfortable? Do we want to "test the waters" first? Get an idea of who they are? Make sure they're not going to mess up the neighborhood? Do we want to keep to ourselves so that they will hopefully keep to themselves and not intrude on our lives?

I don't know why we haven't done it before, but I'm glad we did this time and I hope we will in the future. I'm not under any illusions that we're going to be best friends with Stephanie or with Brent and his significant other. But I think it is telling that instead of referring to them as "the woman/couple who live(s) in that house," we call them "neighbors."

day six: icing on the cake

Lemon cake with icing, Grammy's recipe.
Sweet.

We made it for the senior adults at our church, the XYZ group (for Extra Years of Zest...also because it is at the end of the alphabet), and took it to their monthly meeting today. They loved it. I was in a staff meeting and running about five minutes late, but by the time I arrived, the cake was already gone. Suzy (who had arrived on time) told me that they even made a special announcement about her bringing it to the meeting. They thanked us profusely and raved about how delicious the cake was. They were so thankful and so sweet.

But even sweeter? When one of the ladies carried our baby boy around to every single person. At each table someone pinched his cheeks, rubbed his head, played with his toes... They all treated him like he was one of theirs. He was in a room with 50 grandparents: some eccentric, some a little senile, some overbearing, but all of them sweet.

Some of the XYZ group. On the left edge of the picture you can see the lady carrying around our boy.

The food was good. The thanks and compliments were nice. But the icing on the cake was realizing how much these people care about us and our baby.

We began this Lenten season thinking that we would be the ones showing love, care, and grace to others. We experienced it for ourselves from these senior adults.

Sweet.

day five: new parents

I’m tired. I’ve haven’t been sleeping well the past few nights, staying up too late and getting up too early, and all I want to do right now is lay down. But I'd bet that I’m not nearly as tired as the new parents we got to see tonight.

Matt and Brittney had their baby girl not even two weeks ago. And if I remember correctly, it would be right around this time that they're ready to crash. The midnight feedings, 3 a.m. diaper changes, and hyper-vigilance of parenthood are probably taking their toll. So we signed up on their meal calendar to take them dinner tonight (CareCalendar is another program you can use).

Suzy holding the new little girl

Our baby boy with his future girlfriend

One part of our Lenten experiment is to make sure everything is as homemade as possible.  Whether cookies or cakes or casseroles, we are trying to really think about what people need and then spend the time to make those things.  Instead of dropping by the store last-minute to pick up a random meal (which is our usual way of doing it), we are trying to be intentional about our preparation and action, forcing ourselves to think through how we show our care for others.

Tonight, Suzy made Chicken Diabolo (a recurring star at her family events) along with green beans, cole slaw and rolls. Here's the recipe for the casserole, in case you want to try it:

1 rotisserie chicken, meat pulled
1 box Uncle Ben's wild rice
1 large can sliced mushrooms, drained
2 Tbsp. prepared mustard
1 Tbsp. parsley flakes
1/2 C. chicken broth
1/2 can cream of mushroom soup
1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened 

Topping:
1/2 C. melted butter
1 C. brown sugar 

Cook rice according to box instructions. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, mustard, mushrooms, parsley, soup, and broth. Add chicken and rice. Layer mixture into a 9"x13" baking pan (sprayed with Pam). Mix together topping ingredients, and sprinkle on top of chicken rice mixture. Bake for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Between getting the groceries we need for this 40 day adventure, making meals, baking sweets, spending time serving or volunteering, and God knows what else we'll end up doing, we're beginning to realize how busy and tired we will be. But I also know that it will be a good kind of tired: when you know you've done something that matters, that has made a difference, that has meant something to someone...at least, that's my hope.

I've been trying to figure out how to end this post for the last 20 minutes. I wanted to wrap it up with some nice, neat, profound insight. But I'm tired. So...

first sunday in lent

I know that we aren't doing anything on Sundays, because technically Sundays are not included in the 40 days of Lent (see intro to culinary care here). But I do want to post two things each Sunday.

First, I want to post some pictures. It may just be a slideshow from the past week's entries, or something completely different. This week's entry is the latter.

Our group of young adults from the church surprised our friends Amy and Ryan on Friday night for a going away party. Ryan has a new job in Lexington, SC, and this is their last weekend in town.

Ryan and Amy

They thought that they were just meeting Suzy and me for dinner at Liberty Tap Room, home of the Freedom Burger: a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg (which is, of course, how freedom would taste if it were translated into a sandwich). But instead of just Suzy and me, Amy and Ryan got this crowd:

A motley crew, but we love each other

 We ate dinner, talked, enjoyed each other's company, said some goodbyes, and polished off most of a sheet cake that could serve 50 normal people, or 20 of us.

We'll miss you, Ryan and Amy! (But I'll see you in a couple of weeks when I'm in Columbia!)


Second, each Sunday I'd like to share the calendar of ideas that Suzy and I are using to do "culinary care." Here's what we've got so far (and this could change):



If you are interested in joining us in any of these ventures, just let me know. We'd love to have more people involved. And even if you can't join us to participate directly, maybe you can do something similar in your own life that would invite others to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8).

Culinary Care

“taste and see that the Lord is good” Psalm 34:8

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
			22	23	24	25
			Give couple a buy-one-get-one-free card to the Peddler for a date night	Baby food/formula to Eastside Crisis Center	Lunch for Phil	Hand out bottled water on the Swamp Rabbit Trail
26	27	28	29	1	2	3
	Make a meal for a couple who just had a baby	Bake a cake for senior adult group at the church	Bake cookies for new neighbor	Volunteer at Project Host soup kitchen	Make dinner for homebound church member	Provide refreshments for community-wide seminar at church
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
	Bake a cake for custodians and assistants at work	Put out a bird feeder	Donate baby food/formula to Safe Harbor (for victims of domestic violence)	Donate food to Catholic Charities	Volunteer for Meals on Wheels, delivering food	Take college students out to dinner
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
	Pay it forward at fast food drive-thru	Leave dollars in vending machines	Donate canned goods to North Greenville Food Crisis Ministry	Hand out gift cards to fast food restaurant	Provide fertilizer for Travelers Rest High School organic garden	Hand out bagged lunches at Falls Park

I'll leave you with this image of our den:

day four: h2o

Water. One of the most common, basic, fundamental substances on the earth. And if food is a primary resource for human life, water is an absolute necessity. A person can go a couple weeks without food, but only a day or two without water.

Today's adventure was handing out bottles of water to runners, walkers, and cyclists along the Swamp Rabbit Trail, a greenway that runs from just above Travelers Rest to just below Cleveland Park in Greenville. We walked for an hour and a half on the trail and around the lake at Furman University (map C on the link above) and handed out bottles of water to people we passed.

The pack of 35 water bottles only cost $3.98 (Thank you, Costco!), and it gave us a great opportunity to take the dogs and baby for a walk on the trail, not to mention a reason to talk to people. In fact, we want to do it again, and not even as a part of this Lenten experience...just to do it. (I think next time I'd like to hand out reusable water bottles so there's not so much waste. But that would cost waaaaaay more than $3.98.)

The most interesting part of our experience was people's reactions. It was like they couldn't believe that someone would give out water for no reason other than to give a drink to people who are thirsty. We got some strange looks and some "No thanks" laced with suspicion, but there were people who were pleasantly surprised and very grateful for cool drink.

Suzy and I debated whether or not we would take a bottle of water from someone offering it on the trail, and we both said that we would probably be a little wary ourselves. But what does it say about us when we're suspicious of others' good deeds, or shocked by a simple act of kindness, or surprised by someone's generosity?

I'm sure some would say that I should have "witnessed" to the people we encountered, that we should have given them the water and quoted some scripture:

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. (John 4:13-14)

Then again, Jesus didn't always go around preaching to people. He met them where they were, in daily interactions. Even in the passage above, he strikes up a conversation with this woman at the well because he stopped there to rest and asked her for a drink of water.

Maybe I should have said something about my role as a minister or my church or my faith or something. I don't even know if I could have if I wanted to, though. Many of the people we saw were running or cycling past us so quickly we barely had time to even offer them the water. And that's often how life is: it moves so quickly that we rarely get the opportunity to slow down, have a conversation, and potentially share something about our faith.

Don't get me wrong: we can and should be intentional about creating those opportunities and making that time. But we should also look for ways to let our faith speak through our actions. Do we really think that God can speak only through the words of our mouths? Maybe God can speak to someone even through the most common, basic, fundamental necessity of life, given in a surprisingly simple act of kindness.

day three: phil

Today did not go as planned.

Suzy and I had initially decided that we were going to take sugar-free candy to nursing homes. Didn't happen...because we've also had some new people move into houses on our street, and we wanted to take them cookies to welcome them to the neighborhood. Didn't happen...because we met Phil.

We went to lunch at Stax's Original on Poinsett Highway, and as we were walking in we noticed a man sitting on the curb in the parking lot. You've seen the type before: beard, backpack, dirty. If we hadn't made this Lenten commitment, I doubt we would have said or done anything. We probably would have thought about talking to him or offering him a meal, but I doubt that either of us would have vocalized it, much less actually have done it. But...

A typical meal at Stax's Original

When I walked back outside, I went up to the man and asked if he was doing OK. He said, "I woke up this morning. That's better than the alternative." I chuckled and said, "That's true." But I also realized that his response might not just be a witty answer to a trite question, but a scary possibility he faces when he goes to sleep each night.

After we introduced ourselves, I asked him if he had anything for lunch and invited him to join us inside. He declined, saying that he wasn't really comfortable around crowds, so I took his "to-go" order instead. While we waited for his BLT and fries, Suzy and I talked about how we could be as relational as possible and treat Phil like a "real person." How ridiculous is it that we have to have a conversation about how to treat another human being like a human being? And even so, as we talked we realized that we were using words like "they" and "them" to describe people who are hungry or homeless or both. "They're just like us." Even with our good intentions, our hypocrisy was evident.

When I brought it back out to him, he was standing and seemed ready to leave. We chatted for a minute. I asked him where he was from.
He shrugged. "All over."
I asked where he was headed.
"You know, I don't really know where I'm going."
I asked if he had somewhere to stay tonight.
He told me he had a tent in the woods behind the Lowe's just up the road and asked me if it was going to rain. I said I didn't think it would, at least not much.

Before he walked away, I offered a simple prayer for the food and for Phil. But "giving thanks" for a meal doesn't feel the same when you're praying with someone for whom the food we're about to eat might be the only he has all day. I went back inside, Phil went back to his tent (so I assume), and I have no idea what will happen to him or where he'll go.

As Suzy and I were planning this Lenten commitment, I told her that I was worried that if we scheduled something for each day, we would not have room for more spontaneous acts. I was wrong.

None of us really knows where we're going; not if we will let ourselves be interrupted and follow the detours that God graciously offers us, detours that lead us in "roundabout ways that end up in the right direction" (as Harold Kushner translates Psalm 23).

Today certainly did not go as planned. But it did end up in the right direction. Thank God.

day two: baby steps

Day two, and I'm already wondering what I've gotten myself into.

Suzy and her mom spent the entire morning at Costco, stocking up for what we'll be doing these next couple of weeks. They brought home boxes and boxes of food, now stacked up in the back room of our house. Then...*drumroll*... she showed me the receipt.

Sweet. Lord.

Hundreds of dollars later, and we didn't even get everything that we would need for just the first couple weeks of Lent! (By the way, I'm going to keep track of how much we spend on this 40 day project and post the total at the end.) And I still had to stop by the grocery store to pick up goods to donate to the Eastside Crisis Center, today's culinary care recipient.

But what to donate? This blog is gonna get really old really quickly if every other day you read, "...And so we took some more canned goods to yet another food pantry." So I thought we'd do something a little different.

Our tiny pile of baby food (picture enlarged so as not to be so embarrassing)

Baby food.

I had interned at a similar non-profit for a couple of summers during college, and I remembered that people would sometimes come in and ask for baby food or baby formula. The sad part was, we hardly ever had any on hand because people usually didn't donate it. Most people, like me up until that point, think of the hungry person to whom they give to be a grown man, probably homeless. But a parent or family with a baby? A baby in America wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't be hungry...right?

Sadly, they can...and are. And these precious gifts from God didn't do anything to deserve to be hungry (of course, a homeless addict may not have either, but that's another sermon). As a new father, I can't imagine not being able to feed my baby when he's hungry, and it is unconscionable to me for someone else to have that kind of need.

But it happens...every day, even in our city. And as with most issues of poverty or hunger or injustice, I get overwhelmed. I never feel like I am doing enough. In fact, when I brought home a grocery bag filled with jars of baby food, I suggested that we give it all to the Crisis Center, and we could just buy more to give to other organizations. Suzy could tell that I was feeling the burden already. She reminded me that it's just day two. We've got thirty-eight more. We've got a lifetime, really.

What she said reminded me of a passage in The Message. Matthew 10:42 gets paraphrased like this:
     "This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who's thirsty, for instance."

A cool cup of water.
A little jar of baby food.
Baby steps on our journey.

day one: date night

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent. And this year, it's also day 1 of our 40 days of culinary care. We decided to start simple.

A couple at our church has had a rough couple of weeks. They've faced tough decisions, been working long hours, and feeling a bit run down. They needed a night out.

Since Suzy and I eat out so much (too much), we invested in a Peddler card (for The Peddler Steakhouse). You pay $100 and you get 10 punches. Each punch is good for one free meal with the purchase of another...a buy-one-get-one-free deal! So you can get two filets mignons for the price of one -  perfect for a date night!

We had one more punch left on our card, and we'd heard this couple talk about how much they love The Peddler's steaks, so we decided to give them our last punch. We figured it might give them an excuse to have a date night, relax a little, and enjoy a nice dinner out, even in the midst of a tough time.

We know we're not feeding the hungry or poor. We realize that this was no grand gesture or major effort or big sacrifice on our part. But we decided to start close. Going out for dinner is something we really enjoy, so we thought we would pass that along to some friends who would enjoy a night out and a good meal. After all...who wouldn't?

forty days of culinary care

Chocolate. Alcohol. Meat. Sweet tea.

These are just a few of the things that I’ve given up in past years for Lent. But this year I wanted to do it differently. Enter: my brilliant wife. Suzy came up with the idea of blogging through these 40 days of Lent, finding ways to care for others using food.

So here’s what we’re going to do:

40 days of Culinary Care. Each day of Lent*—Ash Wednesday (February 22^nd this year) through Holy Saturday (April 7^th this year)—we are going to share love by sharing food. Sometimes we’ll be cooking. Sometimes we’ll be donating. Sometimes we’ll be serving. Sometimes we’ll be getting really creative, because it’s hard to think of 40 different ways to do this.

I’ll be blogging each day to share what we’ve done. I feel kind of weird doing. It feels a little pretentious and self-righteous. Please understand: I don’t have any delusions that what we’re doing will change the world, or even that it will be all that meaningful (for us or anybody else). Honestly, I just thought it was a cool idea when Suzy suggested it.

I am hoping, however, that this undertaking will give me some discipline during these seven-ish weeks. I am hoping that it will make me more intentional in my Lenten journey, more aware of how I use food (to show love, to feel comforted, to display status or power, etc.), and maybe even more aware of how the accessibility of food is a justice issue—not just on a global scale, but in my everyday, normal, routine lives.

I’m sure that I will stumble my way through these 40 days. There will be times when I will screw it up or miss the point; when my hypocrisy will be exposed; when I will not feel like doing anything at all and will just go through the drudgery of whatever we have planned, simply so that I can post something here. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to watch the idea unfold, and to see where it takes us.

Hopefully, by the end of this season, we will be able to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8).

*Sundays are not included in the 40 days of Lent, because Sunday is always supposed to be a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. That’s why they are called the Sundays in Lent, not the Sundays of Lent.