Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[a] and ate their food with glad and generous hearts…–Acts 2:46
For almost twenty years, the place where I have broken bread at lunchtime is the faculty lounge at the school where I teach. It’s a place for sharing good news, sad news, and the ridiculous things middle school students do as they try to outwit their teachers.
Those connections are shared over food – and the food is sometimes homemade banana bread, leftover Halloween candy, or leftovers past their prime. A few meals have been more memorable.
One that stands out was the dessert-filled return to school on the Monday after April break, 2013. That was the year of the Boston Marathon bombing, and on the last weekday of the break we all held our breath as the manhunt for the bomber locked down Watertown and surrounding towns. One of our teachers, Callie, lived nearby, and was confined to her house.
Callie was a veteran French teacher, one of our main social organizers, and a fabulous baker. To pass the time, she started baking. Then she decided that we would all need something to cheer us up when we returned to school Monday. She would try to get as many teachers as possible to bake desserts and bring them to school Monday.
So sometime in the afternoon I got a phone call. It was Callie. “I’m just going through the staff to see who’s home – glad I caught you!” (Or something like that – this was over a decade ago!) “What are you doing today?” She told me about her baking plan. I am not a regular baker, but I had a few ingredients, so I said I was in. We had a nice chat, and she went on to her next phone call.
I don’t know how many people Callie called personally that day, but there was a table full of desserts when we came back to school on Monday. Everyone found their way to the faculty room, and we were able to share our grief and fear together.
Callie has since retired, but her legacy lives on. We are a faculty that bakes and cooks for each other regularly – in times of need, and just for fun. Our hearts might not always be glad, but they feel better when our bodies are fed.
Holy Spirit, guide us and inspire us to reach out and feed each other in times of need.
–Mary Memmott