Family is People You Share Food with on a Regular Basis

Last night, I wrote a post about my social media family. I described family as: 

It includes blood and marriage of course. And immediate family are the people I cherish most in the world. But family here is the people I share with and who choose to share with me each day.

My friend, Alex, then posted:

I was in a community once that defined family as people that you share food with on a regular basis.

This was an interesting premise to learn about.  It got me thinking. In the traditional sense of a community, this would make a lot of sense. What would it mean to an electronic or virtual community? I wrote that perhaps if we adapted it to say "food for thought" or "pictures of food" it would work.

While this is an interesting adaptation of what Alex said, I wanted to spend some time thinking about why sharing food on a regular basis would make family by choice.  This is particularly interesting in light of some recent posts about blended families being families by choice and what the implications of families by choice would be.  

We can start with the obvious.  Family is about sharing.  Not only food, of course.  Although perhaps the earliest versions of family were mostly about sharing food-at the bottom of Maslow's triangle.  The most basic need.  With whom do we share when we are worried about taking care of our most basic needs?  The people we care about most.  Family.  At that point it was about survival.  And if we want to get biological-it was not only about our own survival or the survival of the species but also about the survival of our DNA once children were involved.

In this day and age, what does sharing food bring out?  Well, food brings our conversation.  When humans moved from just sharing whatever they already had to planning ahead, people could have been discussing strategy for the next hunt. Today, conversation could be about what was good in the day.  About what was bad in the day.  About the bigger picture.  About how each of us and the family unit as a whole fit in with the bigger picture and something bigger.  Spirituality.  Much higher on Maslow's triangle.

Why does it bring this out?  Well, I believe that truly sharing food doesn't mean just leaving a pot of something on the stove that everyone can grab a plate of when they get a chance.  Truly sharing means stopping and sitting at table together.  It makes us slow down.  It means we spend time in one place.  Around one table.  Focused.  Together.  Being a part of something bigger.  If we give a completely secular interpretation to "whenever two or more are gathered in my name" and just write "whenever two or more are gathered" I begin to recognize that there is something to that.  

In a world of friends separated not by the next cave, next house, or even next community over but by hundreds or thousands of miles, we can always gather at table.  But there are other ways to gather.  

I find that sharing pictures of food speaks volumes.  It speaks to how I (or anyone else sharing such a picture) likes to put time into our cooking.  Cares about our cooking.  Cares enough about our cooking to do something more than just a TV dinner for our family.  Cares enough to share it.  Some might say, show off rather  than share but I think it is about having other people be interested and thinking about whether they would ever make the same thing.  What they are going to make for dinner tonight. Sharing our inner workings as it really matters.  And sharing what is important.

Finally, sharing food for thought.  For me, it means I take the time to write.  For those who are part of my "Connecting the Dots" family it means taking the time to read what I have written.  The time to think and write, and time to read and think, is a reflective process that fits well with the sharing that could occur around a table with family (in whatever sense of the word) and food and drink.  It is an synchronous sharing relationship, but it is still a sharing relationship.  An online family.

It doesn't mean that a virtual family (even one centered around thinking) could ever replace a real family.  A family of people you can walk next to, sit next to, hug, and look at.  But it does offer a way of extending family.

And for that, I am grateful to have learned about my friend's community's interpretation of family. 

The Spirituality of Advent, Day 4, Week 2

Today, I want to address preparation for running.  There are many activities that are part of preparation for running and some of them have changed over time.  

One activity that used to be part of preparation when I was a teenager but is not part of preparation now is stretching.  We used to do a lot of stretching on mostly cold muscles.  The evidence these days suggests that stretching cold muscles is just as likely to lead to a pull as to help to prevent a pull.  So, I stretch some these days, if I stretch at all I usually stretch at the end of the workout or at least after a warmup.

Before a fast and hard run one thing that I still do is a warm-up.  This gets the muscles ready for the stress that the harder workout will put on them.  A bit of slow and easy running.  Or when at the gym, even some other type of exercise.  This does help to prevent pulls and strains when doing a harder workout.

Then there is dressing properly.  In Baltimore this sometimes means wearing as little as possible while not being indecent.  At other times of year, it means figuring out how many layers I can wear while still being able to run.  And sometimes, it means choosing just the right number of layers and right clothing for each part of the body.  

Then there is making sure that I have whatever liquid or nutrition I need for during the workout.  Sometimes just water.  Other times Gatorade.  Then I might take a variety of nutritional supplements.  All to make sure that during the run, my muscles are ready.  

Finally, there is the need to make sure that my digestive system is as empty as possible of everything I ate before the workout.  Even if it was the day before.  I find it very uncomfortable to run with anything in my stomach.  This is interesting when it is paired with making sure that I have the right liquid and nutrition to take with me to ingest during the run.

All of these are pretty basic and very functional aspects of preparing to run.  So how does any of this come back to the spirituality of Advent without repeating that there are many aspects of preparation for anything and this is just another example of an activity that requires me to undertake a large number of activities to prepare.  

Perhaps it is useful to think about analogies.  Stretching and warming up muscles is like preparing the heart and soul to focus on being ready to accept God when I go to church.  I contend to this day that God does not care how I dress for church and that any expectations for clothing are a human convention.  However, I think that considering how to dress is like preparing myself for whatever challenges the particular trip to church will present.  Some readings are tougher to deal with.  Some priests are more difficult to appreciate.  There are other situations that lead to variation in my experience of the community experience of mass and in the same way that I can be best prepared for them, I need to prepare myself to face whatever weather I face along with many other runners.  Making sure that I bring liquid and nourishment along the way makes me think of being ready to receive the spiritual nourishment that the community experience of church offers.  And finally, clearing my digestive system is like trying to leave everything that may be troubling my heart and soul behind so that I can appreciate the community experience of church in the most meaningful way possible.  

So, I really think that there are some cool ways to think about how preparing for running is like preparing for a spiritual and communal experience at church each week.  

Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread & Well-Being (It's not just the taste)

Last night I posted a picture of the Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread that I had made yesterday morning and that my family (along with my sixteen year old's girlfriend) was having for dessert.  A friend (who had previously shared with me her mom's Irish Soda Bread recipe) asked for the recipe, so here it is and it is not that hard.  The cooking takes an hour or just over.  The cooling takes some time.  But the actual prep can be done in less than 15 minutes (and probably as little as ten) after a few tries.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread

Ingredients
4 ripe bananas, smashed
1 cup sugar
1 cup chopped hazelnuts (this is the easiest way to find them where I shop)
1/3 cup melted butter
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).  Mash the bananas.  Add sugar and mix.  Add nuts, butter and the egg.  Mix.  Add vanilla and baking soda.  Mix.  Add remaining ingredients.  Mix till all flour is incorporated.  (As my seven year old likes to say, don't leave any flour "pockets".)  Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan (or a well seasoned stone loaf pan without butter). Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 5 minutes. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, why is a recipe like this relevant to my blog about nourishing the soul.  Well, it was certainly nourishing to those who ate it in a physical sense.  (Yes, it is a bit of a sweet treat but with the bananas and nuts its not all bad.)  But for me it was also nourishing to my soul.  The reason is that it was part of making two recipes before I went to work yesterday--I also made rolls that went along with the entree for dinner as we served store bought ravioli and sauce, added fresh tomato and pepper to the sauce, and had homemade rolls alongside.  I love to bake bread.  And I love to share what I bake.

And when we have my whole family at the table (although the seven year old slept through dinner last night), we have fun conversation.  And when we welcome my sixteen year old's girlfriend she seems at ease with and has fun with the conversation too.  

The feeling of creating--especially when it is borrowing from someone else's recipe but adding my own twist.  The feeling of sharing.  The feeling of family.  The feeling of being at ease with family and anyone who joins my family for dinner.  All are good.

It may help that we live in a house with no TV in the dining room or even on the same level of the house as the dining room.  It gives us a chance (when we do actually sit down) to focus on each other.  We are sometimes distracted by reading the news or the mail.  But last night it was just such a nice time to sit and have conversation.  Also funny that it should come less than a week after our return from Colonial Williamsburg where they may have had more chores after dinner but they certainly had no TV or internet to distract them and I'm sure had to learn to have conversations as well.

There is a sense of wholeness that comes from having a family sit together.  There is a sense of wholeness that comes from good conversation long into the evening.  Can't do that every night with the pressures of my job and other activities that I, my wife, and my kids have.  But to do it at least once in a while really helps to emphasize what drives well-being--good food, good family, good friends, good conversation.  In a home that focuses on the good and blessings of God.