Sunday Reflections: Sitting around the kitchen table.....learnin' 'bout love!

" We are one big family of people, trying to make our way through the unfolding puzzle of life. We are all connected to one another in the heart. Connecting with the ultimate source of love is possible through discovering the hidden power in your heart."

Sara Paddison, Hidden Power of the Heart

 

I stood in my kitchen this afternoon after shucking some ears of corn, cutting off the kernels and scraping the cob.  As I put the knife up to a cob, without notice,

without even knowing what I was doing....

It happened....

the visual of corn coming off in rolls,

of juice spraying my arms and eyes,

the sweet smell of freshness....

I thought of the person who planted the seed, picked the corn,

thought of the water that fell from the sky and the sun that helped the seed birth forth into delicious wonder....

and

suddenly

in

a flash of time,

there I sat....

at that old gray and white metal table

in the center of my great-grandmother's kitchen....

it was a warm memory

hot corn piled high, the little box radio playing on the country station,

granite buckets to capture the kernels we were cutting off...

mom, my little sister and my fatma......

fatma was the motherly matriarch

who felt it was her job to pass on the secret family freezing and canning recipe...

she ran the show...

I was never allowed to cut the corn off the cob--that was for fatma and mama--

my sister and I had the unglamorous job of taking the cobs that they had cut the kernels off of and use a butter knife to scrape the remaining kernel and juice out into the granite pail holding the delectable goodness.

I was only there in my mind for a few minutes today...

but it was a good visit...

a refreshing memory of sort...

a reminder of

days when life was slow

and

families

sat around the table

and

took time to know each other,

laugh with each other and

tell ancestral stories of days gone by....

I cherish the memory of my fatma's table...

lots happened there...

wonderful food...like baked ham, home grown green beans and the best

German chocolate cake I've ever eaten

was cooked and served by the hands of a woman

born in 1900. 

I loved her deeply and wonder where I'd have been had I not sat at that table in her kitchen..

It was on that kitchen table that she kept her tattered bible with a piece of an envelope marking her place every day.  She'd sit there first thing with her steaming coffee and I'd watch her read through her thick glasses and see her lips moving as her eyes passed through the lines of the passages.

I guess, I came to understand the depths of God's love

right there

at that metal table,

I was fed, I was nurtured,

I was taught

and

corrected there

and

most importantly

I was loved

into the depths of

the wonder of family and faith and love.

I'm thankful today for a corn cob moment

that

invited me

to travel once again

to a place

that holds cherished memories...

thankful

for

juice and kernels and wonder....

thankful

for

a visit into a story of my past.

hope all of you

have

a wonderful

Sunday memory as well..

or that you are creating your on type of ritual..

where hearts connect,

love vibrates

and

 faith is infused.

Hugs and Blessings...