third places

Tuesdays are my day for making the soups in the sort of 'third place' meeting place we run here. Apart from the fact that I actually enjoy the challenge of culinary creativity in coming up with all sorts of different soups, the 'discipline of service' which it involves is one I find helpful and fulfilling.

It always reminds me of a guy back in the 17th century, by the name of Brother Lawrence (not his real name - he was actually Nicolas Herman - but a kind of ecclesiastical 'nom de plume' he took when he entered the Order of Carmelites).

He worked as a cook in the monastery kitchen for fifteen years, and later, when gout got the better of him (don't ask why!) he ended up making sandals for his fellow Carmelites. He's an interesting guy - not just because this lot of Carmelites were a barefoot Order of monks, and I'm intrigued to know quite why Lorro ended up making sandals for them: am I missing something obvious?!! - but mainly because of the book which he wrote, called The Practice of the Presence of God.

Its basic thesis is that the kitchen is as good a place as any to know and enjoy the presence of God. You don't have to be involved in patently pious activities to experience God's presence and enjoy relationship with him. The mundane is as sacred as anything. Making soup is as much a ministry as preaching sermons.

The 'third place' which we run here - where people of all shapes and sizes (literally and metaphorically) can come in and eat and drink and chat - provides an ideal chance to get alongside folk in ways that aren't really possible otherwise.

A mum with her two on-holiday children were in today. From the children I got (1) a crash course on the ancient Romans and the way they conquered and then got conquered themselves: and (2) an introduction to the 'charming' little lad called horrid Henry who's the star of a series of books and an ITV children's programme - and also to perfect Peter, horrid Henry's younger brother who's, well, near to perfect.

A picture, I thought, of the people that we often are, in fact, and the people that we - wrongly - often feel we ought to be: a sort of children's adaptation of the story Jesus told of the prodigal son, the 'perfect Peter' older son, and the wise, kind, gracious father caught between.

The children understand all too well that life's all about relationships - whether on the small-scale, daily canvas of our family life, or on the larger, complex canvas of the nations' interactions with each other.

Which is back to the kitchen, the soups and the chat. Providing a place where people can talk, where relationships start and can grow, where somehow a sense of the presence of God can be known and be shared and enjoyed.

Third places. Well, my brother's off tomorrow to a good deal more than his third place of work and ministry, this time in Zambia.

He was in for lunch today and it was good to have one last meal together. 'Third places' like this where we can sit and eat and drink and laugh and cry are the bedrock of relationships.

Hard to see him go, of course, because these last few years when he's been back and near at hand have been great and I've valued more than maybe I was sometimes conscious of the chance to see each other more than had been possible through all the many years he was abroad.

I remember from ages back a Peanuts cartoon where one of the characters says simply - I hate long goodbyes! Agreed. Goodbyes are always hard.