In the days following Christmas, the Arteest and I flew down to Fresno to visit his grandfather and mingle with various other relatives. Grandpa is a salt of the earth kind of guy, who farmed for decades, and even though he gained some financial success, has maintained the kind of no-frills, frugal lifestyle you might expect from an 89 year old retired farmer.
Early on in our visit, Grandpa mentioned that there was a peach pie out in the deep freeze that we should eat while the family was together. A few days went by, and with the parades of fudge, toffee, nut brittle, yule logs and Christmas cookies that were constantly strewn across the kitchen table, we never got around to eating the pie.
The night before we left, Grandpa suggested that perhaps we should eat the pie for breakfast the next morning. So Nancy (my mother in law) obligingly thawed and then baked the pie, which turned out to be more like a cobbler, baked in a huge 12″ x 18″ rectangular pan. (I can’t imagine how it ever fit in the freezer to begin with!)
Yesterday morning, as we each wandered into the kitchen and started eating the warm pie, we discovered it wasn’t peach after all, but apricot. This led to further discussion — Grandpa wasn’t sure who made the pie, because he’s never made a pie that big. Nancy was sure she hadn’t done it. We deduced that it had been in the freezer quite a while. Grandpa mentioned that he hasn’t had enough apricots for a pie that big since before Dorothy passed away. (The Arteest’s grandma, Dorothy, died six years ago.)
So there we were, gathered around the breakfast table, filling our tummies with some really wonderful pie, when we realized that we were actually eating pie that Grandma made before she died. Nancy’s eyes filled with tears. I got goosebumps. I instinctively looked over at Lael, our six year old nephew who is too young to have memories of his great-grandma. And I thought about how much I have heard about this wonderful lady, and how much I have wished I could have known her. And there, sitting in her kitchen, eating pie she made with fruit from their trees, it felt like a miracle — like in some strange way, God and Dorothy had conspired to give us all this moment together to remember and know her.
Tonight was only the second gathering for our merry band of adventers this season, and even though I’m feeling tired and mildly beaten down by plain old normal life and the computer errors, pimples and smelly kitchen garbage cans that go with it, these brief evening encounters with Advent and the discipline of waiting for God to arrive are nourishing to my soul.
Tonight’s essay was written by Alfred Delp, a German Catholic priest whose writings on Advent and other spiritual essays were smuggled out of the Nazi prison where he was incarcerated. (He was eventually executed for his involvement in the resistance against Hitler.) Being challenged to absorb the importance of the arrival of the Christ child by an imprisoned theologian somehow changes one’s perspective about system errors and moldy vegetables. The annoyances of daily living don’t really stand when held up against the realities of life in this world without the hope and peace that Jesus brings.
I am immensely thankful.
(For anyone in the Portland area, our advent gatherings are Monday and Wednesday nights at 9 pm, and Saturday potluck breakfasts at 9:30 am. Email me for details if you’re interested.)
