Why I Like Potluck Dinners
Over the holidays, I attended a family gathering that included a potluck dinner. It made me realize anew how much I enjoy potlucks. First of all, I like the name: potluck. The very sound of it makes me smile. Say it aloud a few times: potluck, potluck, potluck. Isn’t it fun to say? The compound word has three “explosive” consonants: p, t, and k. The two short vowel sounds might even qualify as slant rhyme. They don’t quite rhyme (ah as in father; u as in cup), but they almost do. (The great American poet Emily Dickinson often employed slant rhyme in her poetry. Too much perfect rhyme makes a poem “too sweet.”)
Where does the name, potluck, come from? It is implied in a 16th Century English work of Thomas Nashe, when he wrote: “food provided for an unexpected or uninvited guest, the luck of the pot.” Others say the name is related to the North American indigenous communal meal known as a potlatch—a word meaning “to give away.” Some names for potluck have religious connotations: faith supper, fellowship meal, Jacob’s Join. Another fun name is fuddle (which also means “intoxication.”)
One reason I like potlucks is because everyone contributes to the meal—often with their specialty dish. For example, Uncle George carries in a big pot of chili, cousin Marilou brings her famous sauerkraut balls, Aunt Kathy totes her delicious (and healthy) veggie pizza, Grandma carries her to-die-for apple strudel, cousin Donna brings all kinds of homemade chocolate treats, and the list goes on and on and on. The quality and diversity of the food is what makes the meal so good.
But at the heart of every pot luck dinner are these indispensable factors. First, the sharing of the food preparation. In other words, no one is stuck with all the work. Secondly, there’s the coming together of family and friends–usually at someone’s home, a party room, a park, or wherever. And thirdly, there are always tasty surprises on the menu. The food doesn’t have to fit a specific theme or ethnic tradition—such as American, Italian, Bohemian, Mexican, Chinese. No, your tacos can sit next to those sauerkraut balls on your plate, and it’s perfectly acceptable. Or you can eat your Italian sausage with Bohemian dumplings if you want. And always you can have more than one kind of dessert. So take a piece of that apple strudel plus a lemon bar smothered in chocolate mousse if you choose—and no one will stop you!
All this talk of a potluck dinner not only makes me hungry, it also makes me wonder: Is a potluck meal a good image for the Kingdom of God? In some ways, I say “yes.” The Kingdom of God comes when we not only accept our diversity, we celebrate it. To the Kingdom we bring our “specialty dishes,” honed through the trial and error of our earthly choices. At our Heavenly meal, we will sample the amazing variety of one another’s gifts, cherish those gifts we know and love so well, while risking to enjoy a new dish we have never experienced before. And we will do all of this gathered together, telling stories, with lots of laughter and lots of love for our Heavenly Host and for everyone else too. Yes, for everyone!
For reflection:
Do you like potluck dinners? Why or why not?
Do you have a favorite dish you like to bring to a potluck?
Is there any dish you hope will be served at a potluck?
Are there any dishes you were first introduced to at a potluck?
Do you think a potluck is a good image of the Kingdom of God?
PS: Let us remember in prayer Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (April 16, 1927-December 31, 2022):
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he and all the faithful departed
rest in peace. Amen.
Our song today is (appropriately) a Eucharistic song, Dan Schutte’s “Table of Plenty.” Just the title conjures up the image of a potluck meal with tasty food spread on a long, long table. The song exudes the joy of the gathering, where saints and sinners are welcome, and God will provide for all that we need…
As usual, I encourage you to share a comment below. We all love to hear from other readers!
Time for a Little Humor
If you’ve been a follower of this blog, you know I often stress the importance of hanging on to our sense of humor. So, as we face the beginning of a New Year, let’s take a break from all the heavy and serious things that may be weighing us down, and let’s laugh a little. Why is laughter so important? Because:
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Victor Borge
“Laughter is the best medicine for stress–and it has no bad side effects.” Anonymous
“… humor is, in a certain sense, the measure of faith.” Pope Benedict XVI
With that in mind, let’s begin:
1) It’s all right to have a train of thought—as long as you have a terminal. Bowker
2) I earn a seven-figure salary. Unfortunately, there’s a decimal involved.
3) If you’re paying $3.00 for a bottle of Smartwater, it isn’t working.
4) I’m not in jail, not in a hospital, and not in a grave. I’d say I’m having a pretty good day.
5) Definitions: eternity: the last two minutes of a football game… hamlet: a small pig… acupuncture: a jab well done… coffee: a person on whom one coughs… acre: someone who is sore.
6) Young student to math teacher: “I can’t wear my new glasses in your class, because the doctor said they’re just for reading.”
7. After recess, a third grader complained to the teacher that another student had called him the E word. The teacher asked quietly, “What’s the E word?” The student replied, “Idiot.”
8. Before class began, the sixth grade teacher wrote this on the board: William Shakespeare 1564-1616. One student asked, “Is that Shakespeare’s real phone number?”
9. Proverb: “The person who catches a big fish does not go home through the alley.”
10. A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
11. Only the mediocre are always at their best. Jean Giraudoux
12. Why is it that those who know the least, know it the loudest?
13. Lord, the day you made the skunk,
Did you act before you thunk? Y. Wright
14. When in doubt, mumble… When in trouble, delegate… When in charge, ponder…
15. The last place a person gets converted is in the pocketbook.
16. The priest began his homily with these words: “My job is to speak to you. As I see it, your job is to listen. If by chance you should finish your job before I do, please raise your hand.”
17. I can please only one person a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.
18. Bad spellers of the world, untie!
19. Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.
20. Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. Barry Switzer
21. Veni, vidi, visa. (I came, I saw, I shopped.)
22. I plan on living forever. So far, so good.
23. And finally, here’s an answer to the age old question: Does God laugh? Meister Eckhart wrote:
My Lord told me a joke.
And seeing him laugh has done
more for me than any scripture I will ever read.
I’ll conclude with a quote I copied (while a college student!) from the book Markings by Dag Hammarskjold, one of my all-time heroes. He was the Swedish-born Secretary General of the United Nations from 1953-1961. He died in a place crash in Rhodesia, now Zambia:
“A grace to pray for—that our self-interest, which is inescapable, shall never cripple our sense of humor, that fully conscious self-scrutiny which alone can save us.”
Did any of these tickle your funny bone?
Would you like to add something funny? If so, use the comment space below.
Wishing all of you a Blessed New Year!
As we face the beginning of a New Year, I thought it was appropriate to find a Christian song about hope. Here is Phil Wickham’s “Living Hope.” It reminds us that, for us Christians, our hope is a person: Jesus.
I invite you to submit a comment below!
10 Quotations on the Incarnation: A Christmas Reflection
I invite you today to take a few moments to reflect on the meaning and significance of Christmas. In order to facilitate your reflection, I am offering 10 quotations on the Incarnation and Christmas from a variety of people. Let’s begin with a scripture quote from St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews: “Long ago God spoke many times to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his son” (Heb. 1:2).
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1) “Incarnation is not yet the resurrection. Flesh in Jesus, as in us, is human, vulnerable, weak, incomplete, needy, painfully full of limit, suffering. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth into these things, not his removal of them. Christ redeems limit, evil, sin, and pain. But they are not abolished. Given that truth, we can celebrate at Christ’s birth without in any way denying or trivializing the real evil in our world and the real pain in our lives. Christmas is a challenge to celebrate while still in pain.” Ronald Rolheiser, OMI
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2) “God enters history and does so in his original style: surprise. The God of surprises always surprises us.” Pope Francis
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3) “What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.” Agnes M. Pahro
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4) “Incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which we escape from the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.” Avery Dulles, SJ
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5) “On the one hand, Mary was just a girl, an immature and frightened girl who had the good sense to believe what an angel told her in what seemed like a dream. On the other hand, she was the Mother of the Son of God, with faith enough to move mountains, to sing about the victories of her son as if he were already at the right hand of his father instead of a dollop of cells in her womb…. When we allow God to be born in us, there is no telling, no telling at all, what will come out.” Barbara Brown Taylor
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6) “Action is always superior to speech in the Gospels, which is why the Word became flesh and not newsprint.” Colin Morris
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7) “We forget all too easily that one of the big lessons of the incarnation is that God is found in the ordinary. You wish to see God? Look at the face of the man next to you. You want to hear God? Listen to the cry of the baby, the loud laughter at a party, the wind rustling the trees. You want to feel God? Stretch out your hand and hold someone. Or touch the chair you are sitting on or the book that you are reading. Or just quiet yourself, become aware of the sensations in your body, sense God’s almighty power at work in you and feel how near God is to you. Emmanuel. God with us.” Anthony de Mello
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8) “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.” C.S. Lewis
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9) “The almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.” J. I. Packer
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10) “What good is it if Mary gave birth to the Son of God fourteen hundred years ago if I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and culture?” Meister Eckhart, 13th Century writer
A Christmas wish for all of us:
That we may grow: in gratitude for God’s all-encompassing love… in appreciation for the mystery of the Incarnation… in our awareness of the connectedness of all creation… in our esteem for the ordinary… in our love and respect for all our brothers and sisters… and in our recognition of the preciousness of our unique gift of life… Amen.
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For reflection:
Do any of these quotes touch your heart today? If so, which one(s)?
Here are three Christmas videos. The first is “Mary Did You Know?” sung here by an a cappella group called “Pentatonix.” This version doesn’t have lyrics, but it features the five singers. The second video has lyrics. The third video is Mannheim Steamroller’s classic version of “Joy to the World”—one of my favorite Christmas songs. I hope this music adds to your Christmas spirit!
I welcome your comments below!
Gleanings from My Annual Retreat
I want to share with you a few thoughts from my recent retreat, Nov. 27-Dec. 4. First, the setting. I made my retreat in one of the small houses on our campus. I asked a Jesuit friend, Father Gary in Detroit, if he could meet with me (via zoom) for some “holy conversations.” I couldn’t have asked for a better retreat director. Gary has known me for almost 30 years, since we ministered together at the Jesuit novitiate in Detroit in the 1990’s.
I shared four areas of my life that I wanted to explore during the retreat. I was open to other areas where the Spirit might lead me. We began by formulating together this question for my prayer and reflection: “When I go to God’s doorstep, who comes to the door?” In other words, WHO is God for me? I resonated with the journalist Michael Gerson who said: For Christians, God is not merely a Force, but a Face—Jesus. I spent time with Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal son and his personal encounters with the hemorrhaging woman, with Zacchaeus the tax collector, and with the thief who was crucified beside him. If I am endeavoring to surrender my whole self into God’s hands, to WHOM am I surrendering?
I spent some time reflecting on my own physical diminishment. I recently completed my 78th orbit around the sun. It is understandable that I am experiencing the subtle but very real signs of diminishment—such as less energy and more arthritis. Can I surrender my WHOLE self to God—including my diminishment and my own death? The answer boils down to TRUSTING in the God who loves me more than I can ever imagine.
One resolution from my retreat is this: I want to hang out with the mystics more. (I wrote about the mystics on this blog : “Love Poems from God,” Dec. 17, 2018). The mystics have a REAL loving relationship with God, with Jesus. It’s a relationship I envy. Their intimacy with God helps them to be totally honest with God, completely trusting, often playful, and sometimes defiant against the conventional religious thinking of their day. Here are two brief examples from Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky. For me, these short excerpts reflect the mystics’ familiarity with God and their playfulness:
From Rabia, 8th Century female Islamic saint:
It helps, putting my hand on a pot, on a broom, in a wash pail.
I tried painting, but it was easier to fly slicing potatoes.
From Meister Eckhart, 14th Century Christian monk:
If God would let go of my hand, I would weep so loudly,
I would petition with all my might, I would cause so much trouble
that I bet God would come to his senses and never do that again.
I also meditated on Jesus’ parable of the treasure in the field. I noted: I must buy the WHOLE field. Not just the part where the obvious treasure is. No, the whole kit and caboodle! So too, I must embrace the WHOLE of my life—including those parts that look unpromising, are difficult to bear, that confuse or frighten me.
Two more tidbits I want to hang onto from retreat. God plants seeds in our hearts during a retreat. I must trust that God will continue to water those seeds through my daily prayer, through scripture, through the beauty and mystery of creation, through poetry and song, through my ministry, and (most of all) through all the people God sends into my life (including my “Sunflower Seeds” readers!!!) And finally, Gary reminded me: “The closer I am to God, the more I become my better self.”
For reflection: Did anything stand out for you in these gleanings from my Retreat?
I sometimes use good old fashioned love songs when I pray to God. Here’s a song from my high school years that I sometimes sang to God even as a teenager: “Moon River” by Andy Williams. My decision to enter the Sisters of Notre Dame was something like getting into a boat (or on a raft) on this river, not knowing where the river would take me, but trusting that God was with me. This song still speaks to me today. I see my whole earthly life as a journey with God. Perhaps God is my Moon River… my Huckleberry Friend… To God I can say, “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way”—all the way to the rainbow’s end…
I invite you to write a comment below.
Do You Ever Ask for a Sign?
I know some people who are always asking God (or some saint) for a sign. They ask God to send a bluebird, for example, to show that their deceased loved one is in peace. One woman told me she asked St. Therese of Lisieux (the “Little Flower”) to send a rose as a sign that she was making the right decision about a situation. Sure enough, the very next day she got a thank you note in the mail from a friend. On the front of the card was a beautiful pink rose.
A nun told me this story. I’ll call her Sister Irene. Her best friend, another sister in the community, had just died. A few days after the funeral, Irene was overcome with grief. She drove to a nearby park, sat in her car, opened her car windows, and sobbed. Suddenly a beautiful whitish butterfly fluttered into the car and landed on the steering wheel. Now Irene’s deceased friend was really into butterflies. She had butterfly pictures and images all over her bedroom. She often wrote notes on butterfly stationery and she occasionally wore a butterfly T-shirt or sweatshirt. Irene had not asked for a butterfly that day, but she was convinced her friend had sent the real butterfly into her car to console her in her grief.
I don’t really ask God for signs, but sometimes the signs fall right into my lap. A few weeks after my sister passed away, we members of her family met in her apartment to go through her belongings. My sister had died very suddenly and never had time to go through her things. Everyone knew that my sister’s favorite bird was the cardinal. As we gathered in her living room that morning, someone glanced out the window on her balcony. There perched on the railing was a beautiful bright red cardinal. He didn’t flit away either. He sat there for a good 30 seconds or so—time enough for all of us to see him. I felt that his presence that morning was a sign that my sister was somehow with us that day.
In her book, Gifts from Friends We’ve Yet to Meet, Virginia Herbers, currently living in St. Louis, tells this story about an unusual sign she received from God once. Herbers always asked God to send a cardinal when she was struggling with something—as a sign of God’s presence in her life. One time when she was driving alone in her car, she was overwhelmed by the terrible things that were happening in her life and in the world: her mother had just experienced heart failure, her best friend was struggling with cancer, there had been another school shooting, the clergy sexual abuse crisis was rocking the church, and on and on the bad news went. Herbers writes, “I took advantage of the privacy of the car ride to have another out-loud conversation with God about the current state of affairs.” She ranted and raged at God demanding that he send a cardinal to prove that he was still present and acting in our crazy, mixed up world.
Herbers got so worked up, she had forgotten that she needed to make a left turn at the next light—but now she found herself in the far right lane instead. As she neared the traffic light, it turned red. She huffed in exasperation. Then she describes what happened next: “When the car came to a halt at the intersection, Fredbird (the mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team) jumped into the crosswalk right in front of my car as part of a promotion the team was having at the corner gas station. Fredbird himself proceeded to motion for me to open the window so that he could toss in a Cardinals’ hacky sack.
She concludes with these words of amazement: “Fredbird. The biggest, fattest cardinal a girl could ask for.”
Let me conclude this reflection on signs with the words of Ethel Pochocki, a poet in Maine. One bleak winter, she too asks God for “a sign of approval,” that the step she was taking “was sure.” In the morning, she looks out the kitchen window at the bird feeder “on the railing of the deck” and spots a chicken! In the middle of winter! Now, what is a chicken doing on her bird feeder “amidst the jays and mourning doves squabbling and feasting in the twelve-below freeze”? She stares at the chicken “in disbelief.” Then she thinks: “I know God sends the portents we crave in our neediness.” To some, God sends a “flurry of doves,” an angel, a visit from the Little Flower. But “to me, he sends a chicken.” She ends with these insightful words: “I deduce I am dealing with a prankster.”
For reflection:
Have you ever asked God for a sign? If so, what happened? If you never ask God for a sign, why don’t you?
Are there any “unasked for signs” in your life that offer you the assurance of God’s presence in your life—especially during difficult times?
PS: Thank you for your prayers for my retreat last week. It what a real blessing for me. Next week, I hope to share a few thoughts from my retreat with you.
Our video is a song called “Gifts from God” written by Chris Tomlin and sung here by Chris Lane. It reminds us of the gifts God sends into our life that money can’t buy.
I welcome your responses below. We all love to hear from our readers!
