the greatest of gifts
The kitchen smells savory-rich, of comfort and warmth and vacation, of salty, sizzling bacon, slowly melting butter, and just lightly, of syrup. This morning, we cook up breakfast sandwiches assembly-line style, sipping coffee and talking, our voices rising and falling among the clatter of plates and pans. Here and there, a chuckle, a yawn, a deliberate stilling of our hands as we lay them flat against each other’s arms. We fill the kitchen, moving around each other with a familiarity that almost approaches choreography. There’s a comfortable chaos, a rhythm, a music, to these slower mornings when we gather around the table to breakfast.
As the food cooks, dirty dishes begin to pile up at the sink, and on the counters, scattered utensils and grease-blotted paper towels appear, abandoned by busy hands. I run hot water from the tap, filling the sink with suds, and begin the process of clearing away our mess even before we eat. I count gifts as I plunge my hands in, as I scrub away crumbs: this good, hot meal; certainly, electricity for cooking; the kitchen; even the life-marked vinyl beneath our feet.
We heat the assembled sandwiches in batches to soften the bread and melt the cheese, and, because egg cools quickly, our plan is to eat in shifts– kids and then adults. I watch my children settle in at the table and reach for each other’s hands to pray and I make a mental note of yet more blessings: those three, healthy; their affection for each other; that shared prayer. More than once this joy in seeing my people together in harmony, together seeking God, has moved me to speculate about how much more God our Father must delight to see his children loving each other and seeking him together. In fact, a snatch of prophesy in Malachi hints at this:
Then those who feared and loved the Lord spoke often of him to each other. And he had a Book of Remembrance drawn up in which he recorded the names of those who feared him and loved to think about him.
Malachi 3:16
If God has scrapbooks, they’re full of our unified moments.
“You can eat,” Zoe says to Riley a few moments after Adam has prayed and they’ve released each other’s hands, lifting their heads. Zoe has noticed that while she and Adam have begun to eat, Riley still sits waiting.
“Mmmhmm,” Riley says, making no move to touch her food, glancing back over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where we’re still finishing off the last batch of food.
“Yeah, don’t wait for us,” Kevin says. “Your sandwich will get cold.”
“It’s okay,” Riley says. “I just like it when everyone’s together at the table.”
Of all of us, Riley cherishes these family meals most, lamenting any circumstance that means any one of us will fail to show up. Every gathering at the table foreshadows the heavenly feast, and Riley has me asking myself: Do I lament the missing the way that she does? In Riley’s economy, presence amounts to the greatest of gifts. In fact, only just recently she tearfully explained to me that at least some of her legendary procrastination around solitary activities comes not from the fear of missing out on other activities but from the fear of missing out on community. “I always think you’ll all be gone when I get done, and that makes me upset,” she grieved.
“But what makes you think we’ll be gone?” I had asked, searching my mind for an obscure experience that might have led to this worry. I could not recall a time when such a thing had happened, but I also knew that Autism makes rules out of every unpleasantness.
“I don’t know,” Riley had said, “but I just worry so much about that.”
In profile, I can see her easy smile now, the patient way her hands lay restful in her lap while she waits for us to take our places. Remembering that honest conversation between us, I recognize that as she waits, Riley’s love shines golden: She does for us what she would have us do for her. And catching a glimpse of that glow of glory, my smile widens to match hers, because I also see that Riley’s definition of blessedness reflects God’s own. She has correctly chosen the greatest gift, the one worth the sacrifice of every other, the one that sends the shepherd in search of the one and the prodigal Father running, the one for which God came and died, the one that defines the upside-down Kingdom: relationship, community, love. Or, as Jesus prayed, “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:21).”
As I think on it, I realize that our chronic human mistakes in assigning value, as compared with Kingdom assessments, are historic. Wasn’t it the Corinthians who had to be reminded not to scarf down the communion bread and wine before everyone made it to the table? In their spiritual immaturity, they misplaced the emphasis, valuing the food more than the blessing of coming together as one to celebrate Jesus. We know better—we have known, but what we want to do we do not do. The gulf between knowledge and the kind of faith that moves us to live differently is a ancient pit, a grave, dark with sorrow, bitterness, and regret. That dank gulf is the womb into which God planted His seed. In the first Advent, God built a bridge over our mucked up values, and in coming for us, reiterated the wealth of with-ness.
I have a friend who gets this right, who every Christmas speaks of a “with list” instead of a wish list. I think of him now too, feeling thankful as we carry our plates to the table and Riley beams, all bright joy, and says, “Yea! You’re here!”
