What Kitchen Tool Am I?

(The title was a writing group prompt.)

When I looked around the kitchen I realized most of the tools are made to change stuff. They are the movers and shakers of food world. The potato masher smashes. The whisk stirs things up. The mixer combines. The different spoons stir and serve. Nothing ends up like it started.

I’m not a potato smasher. Too violent.

The mixer, maybe. I do like to combine people in groups.

Not the whisk. I try not to stir things up. I’m more a peacemaker.

I’m an ingredient rather than a tool.

An ingredient is “a component part of something.” (dictionary.com) It add taste and spice and color. Without ingredients, you have nothing to cook and serve.

I am a component part of several communities: my family, my friends, my church, AA, Triad Health Project. Sometimes I’m the spice. Sometimes I’m the humor. Sometimes I’m the quiet presence.

Each group I participate in has changed me. I’ve tasted new ideas, laughed and cried, and gotten to know people I would probably never have met otherwise. I am not the same as when I started.

Without me, those groups would be different. Something would be missing. They would be incomplete. Because I joined with them, they are not the same as when they started.

We all are part of God’s creation. Each of us is an essential ingredient. We each add a unique taste or spice or color.

Moment by moment, we are co-creating God’s world.

 

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Where I Come From

I began in Iowa, land of flat cornfields

and people I love,

of honesty, integrity, loyalty, and peace.

The willow tree was in Iowa,

at Aunt Nadine and Uncle Phil’s.

I loved it, I climbed it and sat there by myself.

No one seemed to wonder where I was.

Did no one think to worry?

Or was I never really noticed at all?

Emily calls us “The Frozen People.”

I learned in my 30’s how to hug.

I’m flustered and shaken

when a friend says “I love you.”

I can never say “I love you” back,

even when I do.

I come from a family who likes to drink.

I was into my 20’s, already a mom

 when I named it alcoholism.

In later years it damaged Dad’s brain,

leading to strokes and a blessed death.

It destroyed my mother’s spirit

and left her an empty shell.

I swore I’d never be like either one.

I’m not, of course, but I came close.

So, I come from Iowa.

I value honesty and compassion.

My spirit’s thawed somewhat.

I will reach out and hug.

I laugh a lot.  It’s that or cry.

I’m probably a smartass,

but my friends don’t seem to mind.

Now I am where my kids are from.

“Don’t lie, don’t cheat and don’t be afraid.”

I talk about no expectations

and I share my trust of God.

Everyone has a story, I say,

and you can’t tell by looking what it is.

I pray for them and I love them.

That’s all there really is to do.

A day at a time, I co-create my lifetime.

God and I are on an adventure,

together we make a pilgrimage.

It starts out where I’m from

and ends up in infinity.

Amen.