A Virtual Church

Life skills

10:08 p.m. today

At Ayden High School back in the 60s, there was a “practice house” where students taking Home Economics could learn and practice the skills a homemaker would need. We learned how to set a proper table. How to fold a napkin. How to make a bed. We also learned first aid.

When Tom’s dad was moving into long term care, I knew how to transfer him onto a stretcher by using a beach towel. I told someone recently that I could make a bound buttonhole even now if push came to shove.

We learned how to budget for meals and how to make much out of little. We learned the processes of canning and freezing. We already have two cases of fig preserves finished, and as soon as pears fall, we will make preserves using them.

I have a picture of myself in an evening gown I made for my senior prom. I won the Betty Crocker Award for excellence in home economics. They don’t even teach the course anymore.

The skills learned as a teenager have held me in good stead for all my 80 years. I have pulled ingredients out of the pantry this morning to make homemade granola. I make homemade yogurt in my Instant Pot.

It is comforting to know that even in this time of rising prices and supply challenges, I am not afraid because I know how to carry on a good life, even if we are reduced to little.

Nobody in America should go hungry. Everybody needs food and shelter. When an administration is skewed to enrich the wealthy and leave the least and lost out, without options and without hope, we have lost our humanity. There is nothing good and right about cutting food stamp subsidies to millions of people. There is even less good in denying our children a future with hope.

We got to this place because some of us were grieved that we were not finding the abundance we thought should be ours. So, we elected a billionaire who doesn’t give a damn about including all of us in a bounteous future.

But there are things we can do.

We had a friend who converted her front yard into a garden. She had vegetables for her family and plenty to share. Churches and nursing homes in our area have community gardens in the large plots of land that surround them. Watching plants grow brings joy where the hurting places are. Food to keep and food to share.

We do Backpack Buddies bags for schoolchildren to take home for their weekend meals. There are ways to bring the loaves and fishes of Christ to neighbors.

City dwellers can find a little land or a large pot and plant a seed. We have tomatoes and cucumbers in our back yard. What a gift sunshine, rain, and a little fertilizer make.

Stories of the Great Depression teach us that substitutions can be found for most ingredients. Deprivation is the seedbed of innovation. Any of us who cook know that a big pot filled with the bounty of the land will feed the world.

Employment of our life skills will hold us in good stead until the tides turn. Perhaps generosity can be sown among us again.

We are called to serve and love our neighbors.

In John, Jesus says, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger.

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist, and host of the blogsite Avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com. 

 

 

 

 

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