Feeding the body and the soul
Last night, red beans, potatoes, onions, turkey sausage, tomatoes and carrots went into our crockpot. This morning, we woke to the aroma of bean soup so fragrant it filled the house with the promise of dinner many hours later.
When times are lean, cooks improvise. I remember watching my grandmother stretch rations for seven into a meals for 11 when I was a child in Cuba. My parents, sister and I had been disenfranchised by the Marxist state for requesting visas to leave. If you wanted out, the government took away your ration book and your job to starve you into seeing things their way. My grandmother’s frugal cooking had been perfected during the Depression; tasty meals that didn’t cost much were her specialty and she kept all of us fed well. She was not only a masterful cook, but the love she added to every meal made them nourishing for the body and soul.
Times are tough for many families in America, including ours. Our one-income family is doing with nine percent less in salary these days, thanks to a decision made at the not-for-profit organization where I work–not five, not ten percent, but an arbitrary nine. My children aren’t in the habit of eating nine percent less at their meals, so the cook in our house–yours truly–had to improvise.
Our red-bean meal was hearty, filling and healthy. The crockpot slow-cooks food without much work, so it was a breeze to prepare. A friend of the family is growing food in her yard now to prepare for difficult times ahead. Her decision reminded of stories about Victory Gardens in decades past.
Tonight, we ate well without much fuss. Knowing that we could survive an unexpected loss of income was rooted in our belief in God’s providence. As my husband says, God has us.
I’ve been reading about Catherine Doherty, the founder of the Madonna House poustinia way of life that sets aside time for prayer and fasting in a quiet room or building. Doherty, whose cause for sainthood is being considered by the Church, lived by what she called “duty of the moment,”
“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don’t just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child…. There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.”
A humble way of living may include lovingly changing a child’s diaper or thanking God for red-bean soup when we could have gone hungry. In feeding the body, we can feed the soul. Either way, God has us.
