I asked that over 100 times as people passed through the serving line. The most interaction I had with the patrons of the Project Host soup kitchen was a small smile and a brush of my gloved hand as I handed them their drink.
It was meaningful, but sadly distant. I was freshly showered, had on an apron over my recently washed clothes, and wore plastic on my hand as to avoid skin-to-skin contact. I worked hard busying myself to get things ready for their arrival. I chopped, peeled, mixed, and poured in order for these people to be welcomed, but even my appearance signaled the differences between us. They were dirty, rundown, and desperate. I was clean, enthusiastic, and hopeful...maybe naively so.
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| We made fruit salad, peeling and segmenting an entire box of oranges. |
I went into the soup kitchen to try to show love to and share life with those who need food the most. (After all, that is my hope for these 40 days...to care for people using food.) But I realized the distance between my hopes and where I actually was. I was behind a counter, not around a table.
Sure, I offered them a cold drink and gave them my most heartfelt "How are you?" I wanted them to know that I KNEW they were just like me. But they didn't, and they aren't. We are different. We were separated. I was standing behind a three foot wide stainless steel serving line, covered in protective clothing and surrounded by rules of how to interact and how much to give.
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| At the beginning of the serving line... |
I know there can be transformative moments around a table. But can there be those kinds of moments when we're separated by a counter? Don't get me wrong: I've worked in a non-profit and I know the need for rules and regulations. But as a volunteer, those same rules and regs felt so constraining and so inhumane. I wanted to go into the cafeteria, sit, and eat. I wanted to, but I didn't...and maybe that's my fault. That counter might as well have been a wall - me on one side, them on the other.
In the kitchen, I felt more like Martha than Mary. When Jesus visits the sisters' home, Mary sits with Jesus while Martha is busy cooking. Today I was Martha. I was busy making sure everything was prepared and ready, without much willingness or even opportunity to sit and visit. There are usually "counters" of some kind in our way: time constraints, societal expectations, or just wanting a moment to ourselves without having to deal with other people. But whatever the reason, we rarely take the time to just sit with others to share a meal, or to share life.
The kitchen was still transformative, though. There was a strange mix of volunteers, all working together to make this meal happen - a retired man from Buffalo, a woman originally from England, high school students with special needs and their teacher, a woman working off community service hours. I took pictures of several signs around the place, but I wish I had taken a picture of the one above the ovens and center island. In letters a foot high, it read: "God's Kitchen." This morning, it was. We were cooking up God's kingdom right there in an commercial kitchen.
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| Artwork capturing the spirit of Project Host, created by students at the SC Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. |
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| Nice paraphrase of 1 John 4:16. |
I'll leave you with this, though: Even if we can't share life around the table, even when we can't be as relational as we'd like, we can at least show love for the "least of these" (Matt 25:40), offering food to the hungry. And maybe if enough of us do that together, we'll find that God, too, is in the kitchen.
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