Last week I took my first trip back to Ohio in a year. This is where my son lives, where my dad and sister live, where I have friends from being part of that community for 17 years. I have waited and waited, and now that we are fully vaccinated, my wife and I felt safe in taking the trip. Everyone we were visiting was also vaccinated—except for one family, and for them we arranged to meet at the zoo and spend the day outside.
The highlight of my weekend was a simple pleasure that I haven’t had for a year. Our friends had us over for dinner in their house and the four of us spent the evening without our masks on. It wasn’t the pork roast or the home made peach pie, or the Kentucky Derby on the television in the kitchen, or even the conversation with old friends that made the evening so special. It was the sense of a return to normalcy. A glimpse that we can have this again: contact with loved ones. Shared space. Sharing one another’s lives in person. When Mary and I got married last summer, this couple did a reading for us, and at that time they were faces on a computer screen.
It is a simple human pleasure, sharing a meal together at a table—and it is a profound one. Eating together, we are giving life to our bodies. Being together, we give life to our souls.
May we all enjoy reunions with friends and loved ones – cautiously, reasonably – as more of us get vaccinated and as we feel safe doing so. The virus is not going away, and if anything we are entering a new phase of learning to live with it. If that includes dinners with beloved friends, I’ll take it.
PRAYER:
Spirit of life and love, be with me now. Love emanates from deep within me when I allow it; love surrounds and permeates me from the natural world when I am receptive to it; and love grows between us when we open our hearts to it.
May all of us be open to love. May we embrace the opportunities we have to connect with one another. Yes, on Zoom. Yes, by phone. And also, when we can, in person. May we make safe choices that include seeing loved ones; may we remember the joy of being together; may we hold one another both virtually and physically.
Shalom. Amen. Blessed be.
The highlight of my weekend was a simple pleasure that I haven’t had for a year. Our friends had us over for dinner in their house and the four of us spent the evening without our masks on. It wasn’t the pork roast or the home made peach pie, or the Kentucky Derby on the television in the kitchen, or even the conversation with old friends that made the evening so special. It was the sense of a return to normalcy. A glimpse that we can have this again: contact with loved ones. Shared space. Sharing one another’s lives in person. When Mary and I got married last summer, this couple did a reading for us, and at that time they were faces on a computer screen.
It is a simple human pleasure, sharing a meal together at a table—and it is a profound one. Eating together, we are giving life to our bodies. Being together, we give life to our souls.
May we all enjoy reunions with friends and loved ones – cautiously, reasonably – as more of us get vaccinated and as we feel safe doing so. The virus is not going away, and if anything we are entering a new phase of learning to live with it. If that includes dinners with beloved friends, I’ll take it.
PRAYER:
Spirit of life and love, be with me now. Love emanates from deep within me when I allow it; love surrounds and permeates me from the natural world when I am receptive to it; and love grows between us when we open our hearts to it.
May all of us be open to love. May we embrace the opportunities we have to connect with one another. Yes, on Zoom. Yes, by phone. And also, when we can, in person. May we make safe choices that include seeing loved ones; may we remember the joy of being together; may we hold one another both virtually and physically.
Shalom. Amen. Blessed be.
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