I’ve got a brain full of hospitality today. All the bread scriptures in the last few weeks’ lectionary are probably part of it. As are the personal circumstances.
We’ve been offered holiday space by a church friend with a house in France. So we then offered our own vacated space to a friend from New York who is coming to town for the fringe festival. All of which means ten days (including my birthday) for us in the sunny south of France, in Cathar castle country. Lovely! And then we’ll be coming home again to the coolest female ukulele musician I know as a roomie for a few more days – win again! (Yes, Spouse. You count as the coolest male ukulele player roomie for sure. And always will.) Our August is looking good.
Which finds us packing and cleaning house at the same time. A whole bunch of happy coming and going, and thinking about hospitality.
Christine Pohll, a theologian from Kentucky, writes about hospitality as a practice accompanied by blessing and mystery. She writes:
“The very identity of the people of God as sojourners and aliens is a deep reminder of our dependence on God as host and of responsibility to deal graciously with literal aliens in our communities.”
Her work on reclaiming hospitality as an act of practical theology is inspirational – she offers wisdom and words that I want to pass around every church I can find. And probably tattoo on my own kitchen walls, too.
You can read more of her work here.
In that article, she describes the welcoming space that hospitality creates as a place “rich with stories, rituals, and a history.” Welcome is about relationships that define a community and stretch to provide welcome to others. I hope that as my little family travels and is welcomed and welcomes in return, we can experience some of that blessing and share it with our children. There are so many conversations about who we are that find their taproot in themes of hospitality.
In the meantime, cleaning, packing and waiting.
I suppose hospitality often contains an element of waiting – another practice where blessing hides. Last week, we had invited a friend from church over for a cup of afternoon tea. Beangirl had decided that afternoon tea required afternoon banana muffins, and I was happy to help with the baking. The best was her extreme diligence at spooning equal amounts of batter into each of the paper cups. She was a pro.
Once everything was ready, we went out into the garden to wait for our guest. Which turned out to be the hardest part. (cue Tom Petty.)
When is she going to get here?
When is she going to get here?
When, Mummy, WHEN??
Oh dear.
I guess there’s always work to be done, mothering kids.
Pameal Druckerman, author of the amusing parenting book Bringing up Bebe* includes waiting as one of those habits that French parents cultivate in their children and all parents should. She delightfully advocates baking as a way to do it. You patiently measure and patiently mix and then patiently patiently wait while it bakes. And while it cools. And then, and then, the children get their taste. I can’t say that I agreed with everything in this book by far, but I loved this tip. My family loves her yoghurt cake recipe. And the tip about measuring with yoghurt cups is a stroke of genius.
This is how we made the recipe:
Ingredients
1 125g Pot of Plain Yoghurt
3 Yoghurt Pots of all-purpose flour
2 Yoghurt Pots of Sugar
1 Yoghurt Pot of Vegetable Oil
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Essence,
3 eggs
1 tbsp Milk
1 tbsp of baking powder
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 and butter and flour a loaf tin. Now, your work is pretty much done and the kids take over.
They mix all the ingredient together. They had an extra something that makes them happy: chocolate chips, raisins, seeds, dried fruit… and mix again.
You pour the batter into the tin and place on the middle shelf of the oven for 35-40 minutes.
When it’s done, the cake will be lovely and golden and of course spring back when touched. Check with a skewer, if you like. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked. If the skewer is covered in cake mixture, it needs a few more minutes in the oven.
My kids made this for the Spouse’s birthday. It wasn’t the most elegant of desserts, but my goodness, they made a cake! How fantastic is that? And it was yummy.
