I remember potluck dinners. Anything my mother brought was from a recipe out of a McCall’s or Good Housekeeping magazine. My father, on the other hand, seemed to magically put things together – more often on the stove top in big pots, and delicious Italian foods would appear!

The arrival ritual went something like this: “Oh, what have we here?” To which my mother or father would explain what the cooked dish was and its ingredients. The casserole dish would either go into the oven to keep it warm or set upon the credenza with a towel over it to keep it warm.

If it was my father’s dish, the conversation would be his siblings all talking at the same time! Each would compare my father’s recipe to how their mother had prepared the same dish when she was alive. And then the squabbling would go on about ingredients, preparation, cooking time, and how each one could do a better job and have it taste exactly like their mother’s dish!

It was a sacred time around the table. And certainly, an image and memory I hold that helps me always appreciate the holiness of the sacrament of communion.

This Sunday during worship, Christine Rudalevige will share about an organization in Maine called Community Plate. This organization was recently noted in an article published in The Boston Globe. The article’s focus was on battling loneliness and isolation in our country. It is fitting that Christine will share the good things happening in our own state to help bring people together.

Prayer: Fill our souls with the nourishment of your good news. Fill our bodies with the nourishment of a good meal and good conversation! Show us the ways to gather in communion with one another. Amen.