“Seems to me… you’d stop to see… just how beautiful we are”**
Once upon a time, just a few years ago, a gentle man and a gentle woman gathered a half dozen electric crockpots and filled each with a different homemade soup. They put these aroma filled pots in the back of their pickup, parked along whatever road or street where they would not be hassled, opened the back gates, and gave bowls of hot soup to whoever was hungry. A lot of people were.
Winter created problem. Soup did not stay hot as long. Hungry and poorly housed people could not travel the icy road as readily. When hearts are open, problems can be solved. Flint Street Food Pantry, with tables and benches, a small serving window, and plug-ins for the crock pots, was the answer. I’d been volunteering there, enjoying the friendship, helping people, learning the history of this small town.
My delight expanded with the soup and hungry people. The finest part of the exchange was the single question, “Are you hungry?” No inquiry into anyone’s belief system, bathing regime, work status. Just that simple question. That was all that mattered – simple, honest, dignified.
I decided the soup needed cornbread. I had a 24-inch Pyrex baking pan: my morning began with the pan straight from the oven into my car, two sticks of butter in my bag. The cornbread would be warm, the butter warm, my feelings warm because I was able to help.
Before long people gave me eggs, milk, cornbread mix – sharing became a group activity. The best sharing still is.
These wonderful, gentle people are now Cup of Love with their own buildings on Highway 62 East where they make everything, even cornbread. The only criterion is still hunger, need. The community helps and is helped.
There’s a special help possible from Thanksgiving through Christmas and the new year when more than ever we bake, we cook, we spend time in the kitchen. Most spice cupboards have back rows of old spices as we add this year’s in front. It’s the back rows that can help Cup of Love. However old, they are not too old to create flavors and warmth.
Moral of the story? Check your spice cupboard. Share.
** From the old Danny Kaye movie, Hans Christian Andersen. It’s been running through my memory reminding me to do just that – stop and see just how beautiful we are.