One of the many blessings of teaching at a small university is the familiarity and friendship I share with my colleagues and students.\u00a0 This conviviality is taken most literally in times of holidays; this Advent season, I have been delighted to share in deliciously spiced pumpkin bread, delicately iced sugar cookies, satisfying wine biscuits, and scrumptious raisin puff cookies.\u00a0 These treats have been exchanged in break rooms, hallways, and even parking lots!\u00a0 Most recently, my husband and I were the recipients of a brilliantly flavored cream pie\u2014given to us by some of our students.\u00a0 Its title, they informed us, was the \u201cPeppermint Express.\u201d\u00a0 As peppermint is a favorite of mine, this was an excellent way to usher in the fourth week of Advent!<\/p>\n
Sharing home-crafted sweets not only marks friendships and relationships in the present, but reminds the baker, and possibly the recipient, of the tradition and past of these desserts.\u00a0 The raisin puff cookies, for example, are\u00a0the recipe of a French grandmother.\u00a0 The wine biscuits (made by my husband) are\u00a0a treasured family recipe, noted down in a well-worn (Italian) family-composed cookbook.\u00a0 Connections across time, space, and nationality have been sealed with an exchange made out of an abundance of blessing.\u00a0 We have resources for flour, sugar, butter, eggs, ovens, electricity, transportation, and the freedom and safety to stop in a parking lot and exchange raisin puffs for wine biscuits.<\/p>\n
Food reminds us to be thankful, and to rejoice in our blessings and our ability share our lives with one another.\u00a0 As Advent winds into its final days\u2014the O Antiphons which precede Christmas Day\u2014how can we share of our abundance and blessings?\u00a0 Can we give more than cookies, and give to our food pantries?\u00a0 Is our local congregation participating in a fundraising event for this Christmas season?\u00a0 Can we donate to our community\u2019s local charities, whether for the homeless, for children, for animals, or the environment?<\/p>\n
As we enter the O Antiphon days here at my university, things grow increasingly quiet, as our little community disperses for a much-needed break.\u00a0 I will keep contemplating myself how I can give from the abundance of my blessings\u2026even if I am<\/em> entering the countdown to Christmas on a delectable Peppermint Express.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Food reminds us to be thankful, and to rejoice in our blessings and our ability share our lives with one another. As Advent winds into its final days\u2014the O Antiphons which precede Christmas Day\u2014how can we share of our abundance and blessings? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-spirituality","category-liturgical-year"],"yoast_head":"\n