Shawna R. B. Atteberry

It was a night I will remember for a long time, probably until I die. Tracy and I were on vacation visiting friends in Gilbert, AZ (a suburb of Phoenix). It was a gorgeous desert evening. The temperature was just right: not too hot and not too cold. As we began dinner we enjoyed the crimson-drenched clouds at sunset. As dinner continued we watched the bright full moon slowly come out from hiding behind the clouds. The food was incredible. We were at a Burmese restaurant in Scottsdale called Little Rangoon. It is owned by a husband and wife team: she cooks, and he mans the front. The food was served family style. We had lots of little bites from lots of different dishes: duck spring rolls, fermented tea leaf salad, samosas, lamb, duck, mushroom trio stir fry, giant coconut fried prawns, coconut chicken curry, garlic noodles, and lots of rice. Dessert were these wonderfully light semolina cakes that were perfect. Then the owner gave us these wonderful banana fritters on the house. There were eight of us, and the conversation flowed and undulated on all sides of the table. We ate, we talked, we laughed, we shared. At the beginning of the meal, six of the seven had been strangers to me. By the end they friends and family. Nothing brings people together and brings out community like a good meal.

I was reminded of this again this afternoon. A former colleague and I discovered recently (thanks to LinkedIn) that we both live in Chicago. We met this afternoon for lunch. It had to have been three years since we talked to each other, and we spent a delightful lunch catching up. We ate, and we talked. An old friendship was reborn.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people (Acts 2:46).

I think the early church knew what they were doing by making eating together a vital component of their life together. Of course this was nothing new to them. Eating together was a vital component of Jewish and Middle Eastern life (still is). The people who ate with you, ate with your family, became part of your family. While they were a guest, you did anything to defend and protect them from threat. At this time “devout Jewish families following temple worship would share meals together as symbolic of their social and spiritual solidarity” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10, p. 73). Eating together to build and maintain community was nothing new.

I like the emphasis on eating together that is coming out of the missional and emerging movements. It used to be if it wasn’t tacked onto a formal church service, then it wasn’t “spiritual.” It was somehow not sacred or holy if it didn’t happen after the Sunday morning or evening service. I think that’s wrong. I think eating together is a sacred and spiritual experience in and of itself. Something happens when a group of people eat together. Defenses come down, chatter turns into conversation, and people start to open up, share, and just be themselves. Strangers become friends. Enemies can sit together, pass the plate, and may be listen to each other for the first time.

Related Posts:
Tables of Love

“Everyone Has a Story”

Judges 4-5

One of my absolutely favorite news segment periods was “Everybody Has a Story.” Journalist Steve Hartman had this absolutely cockamamie idea that a person didn’t need to be rich, or famous, or even a celebrity to have a story. He believed that ordinary people, living ordinary lives, in ordinary places had stories that the rest of us would want to hear and might even help us live our own little, ordinary lives. Even Steve has admitted that he wasn’t sure his idea would work. But for years Steve Hartman proved that everybody has a story. One of things I loved about this news segment is that Steve finds some of the most unlikely people, in the most unlikely places, who have lived through and done some of the most unlikely things.

His stories remind me a lot of the stories I read in the Bible. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things, living ordinary lives. But instead of a pesky reporter dropping in, a pesky God decides to show up and change those ordinary lives forever. That’s what happened in Judges 4.

Judges 4:1-5, An Unlikely Couple
The first three verses of this chapter are typical for the book of Judges. In the book of Judges Israel is caught in a very destructive cycle. They decide to worship the gods around them instead of Yahweh—the God who brought them out Egypt. God then gives them over to an enemy who oppresses them for a while—in this case 20 years. Then the people come to their senses and cry out to God who then raises a judge to deliver them from their oppressors. There is much rejoicing and the people obey God during the life of that judge and then the cycle starts all over again. This is called a downward spiral because not only does the same cycle keep happening, but each time it gets worse.

Then we come to verse 4: “At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel.” Now we come to the first twist in this story—the judge is not a man–it’s a woman. We have an unlikely judge—she’s a wife and probably a mother. And why is she the judge and not her husband? Because God called her and not him. Yes, it’s as simple as that. And what about Lappidoth? I always wonder about this man. He’s only mentioned once in the Bible, but he intrigues me. Since Deborah is judging Israel at the palm of Deborah and fulfilling her calling as a prophet, I’m assuming he’s okay with the arrangement. And yes, in our day and age, we go “Well, duh, yes—she can work if she wants to.” Back then in that day and age Deborah should have been home being a wife and mother–cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids. The place she should not have been was out in public, resolving disputes among the people. That was man’s work. That should have been what Lappidoth was doing. But this unlikely couple obeyed God’s rather strange calling on their lives—God called Deborah to be a prophet and judge, and both she and Lappidoth obeyed God’s calling.

So, not only Deborah, but Deborah and Lappidoth are the first unlikely people we meet in this story. Now we will meet our next unlikely person.

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Singing Owl says: Yesterday I had two separate conversations in which people were musing about how much change is occurring. The WW II generation, of which my mom is a part, went from horse and buggy to automobiles, saw the lessening, or even the end of many diseases, went from widespread use of kerosene lamps and outhouses (in the country, and most folks were rural)) to a totally electrified and plumbed society. The fastest means of communication was a telegraph. The second conversation–gulp–was about MY generation and how much change occurred in the last half of the 20th century. The person said his 13 year old had not seen a vinyl record album until a few days before, couldn’t remember a time without cell phones, and on and on.

As for the questions!

1. What modern convenience/invention could you absolutely, positively not live
without?

A laptop computer. I do not wish to write muliple drafts on a typewriter, and I love the freedom a laptop gives me. Yes, I do remember typewriters, and I have written papers on them. Long live laptops!

2. What modern convenience/invention do you wish had never seen the light of day?
Why?

Honestly, I can’t think of one.

3. Do you own a music-playing device older than a CD player? More than one? If
so, do you use it (them)?

No, we don’t. I gave away my cassette players before we got married because we didn’t have room. We now have a clock/radio/CD player and 2 MP3 players.

4. Do you find the rapid change in our world exciting, scary, a mix…or something
else?

A mix. I like a lot of the changes but I don’t think we developing ethics along with the technological advances we’re making. That scares me.

5. What did our forebears have that we have lost and you’d like to regain? Bonus
points if you have a suggestion of how to begin that process.

Community. You used to know all your neighbors. So I guess I need to start getting out and meeting my neighbors.

We are back from vacation, and getting back to the normal schedule. At least I am. Tracy is in D.C. for a check-up. He should be coming home tomorrow. Then he can get back to his normal schedule next week. Church services will resume this Sunday.

An update on the bump under my right armpit. It is a cyst–a large one which has grown around some tissue. It is also benign. I will be having outpatient surgery on May 1 to have it removed.

I had a lot of time to think about rest, and I’m reading Marva Dawn’s The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church, and the World. I told Tracy that it was nice to rest and not feel guilty about it. I always feel guilty for taking a couple of days off. I feel guilty about far too much, and I need to stop. I will be blogging more about rest, Sabbath, and guilt. What about you? Are you able to take a day or two off just to rest, renew, and revitalize? Do you feel guilty about not doing something–anything?

I’m heading to Phoenix in a couple of hours to see friends. I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Faith and Food
Acts 2:42-47

When I think of tables, I think of eating with friends and family. Through the years these tables have taken different shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s just me and another person and at other times there could be 15-20 of us gathered around. Sometimes it’s quiet conversation and other times a cacophany of chatter, dishes, and someone yelling down the table to get someone else’s attention. I’m Irish-Italian; we tend to be a loud bunch. Of course that didn’t change when I headed off to college, and all of my friends were religion geeks like me. There was still a lot of talking over one another, around one another, and yelling at someone in order to get a word in edgewise. I felt right at home.

The table I normally think of is our family table growing up. Mom, Dad, my sister and me every night for supper. We didn’t have very many family rules set in stone, but eating supper together was one of them. When friends were over, they ate with us. Same thing if family visited: eating supper together never changed except when we slept over at a friend’s or had a school function. Some nights there was a lot of chatter, some nights we played Jeopardy more than we talked, and other nights we ate in relative silence because we were tired. The ebb and flow of activity may have changed but supper itself did not. We ate one meal as a family at the table everyday. Period.

One of the hardest things to get used to when I moved out and started living on my own was eating alone. It seemed odd, wrong. And not just because of family dinner. Before college I had always eaten breakfast with my sister, lunch with friends, and dinner with the family. In college I always ate with friends or the family that adopted me at church. Eating by myself bothered me more than living by myself. In the movie Under the Tuscan Sun her neighbor invites Francis over for supper saying, “It’s not healthy to eat alone.” I absolutely agree with him.

In fact the Mediterranean people know how to do supper. I lived in Barcelona for a year as a Nazarene in Volunteer Service or NIVS for short. I loved their attitude about food. Food was something to be enjoyed, not scarfed down. I am a slow eater. I always have been and I will stubbornly remain so. I get teased because I refuse to scarf my food down in order to “do” something more important. What’s more important than nourishing yourself? And I don’t believe you can nourish yourself if you inhale your food. I fit right in in Spain and with the Mediterranean mindset: food is to be enjoyed and preferably enjoyed with family and bunch of friends. They take supper seriously. There it is a three hour affair with three or four courses and a lot of conversation. Talking, joking, sharing the day, getting caught up. It’s relaxed. Everyone is enjoying themselves. Everyone is enjoying the food. I fit right in. I found out the Italian genes I got from my full-blooded Italian great-grandmother ran true in my blood. They somehow skipped the rest of family.

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I have decided to work Tuesday–Saturdays, so that I can shop and run errands on Monday. This means I will be changing my office hours. I will be out of town April 17-21, so I will post new office hours that will start the week of April 28. There will be no services for South Loop Grace Fellowship on April 20. You can visit the SLGF website for alternate church services to attend.

Shawna