Enchiladas

My sister Mary from Minnesota joined us for thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time drinking coffee, laughing, and telling stories, sharing memories together. Mary is number three in the birth order, four years ahead of me, so we spent a lot of our childhood together. At one point in the festivities I simply gave her some sort of special look while I pointed up at the top of the hutch above our dining room table. I knew she’d remember. And she did. “ENCHILADAS!” she almost screamed with joy.

Up there on top of the hutch sits the copper skillet, the very copper skillet that our grandma Lydia used to make enchiladas; well, the enchilada tortillas. One by one she made them for our extended Hawkinson Christmas family gatherings, when in the late sixties and early seventies there might be thirty or forty of us crowded into their flat on Christiana avenue.

The issue was this, that because those enchiladas were so very delicious, Lydia needed to make, in my estimation, at least two hundred tortillas, one by one, on that little skillet, let alone all the fillings — hers were mildly, rather “Swedishly” seasoned ground beef, cheese, and brown beans. Like being faced with Nanna’s Maple Bars or Oma’s Rye Bread or a bag of Fritos (you pick your favorite food you cannot stop eating here), the over/under on these enchiladas was 5. I think one year my cousin Tim set the record at 12.

Of course Lydia didn’t have to do this — and how she got all those corn tortillas ready to cook up I’ll never know, but wish I did. She could have made it easy on herself; after all there were only two houses to the corner and Foster foods. But there she will ever remain, laboring with love, carefully cooking up hundreds of enchiladas for the generations to gulp down.

And of course, it’s not really about the enchiladas, but about the sacred memories of those childhood christmases, and so many who were there who aren’t anymore, and so many who I rarely if ever see anymore. There’s uncle Zen with his homemade jul must (root beer!). Aunt Barb, ever the preschool teacher, gathers us kids to tell us a Christmas story. Grandpa Eric, ever the stoic, sits in the corner with a sly and delighted smirk. My dad is in his early forties and full of life! And mom at some point gets to the piano and gets us all singing. My oldest Cousin Tom is back from Illinois Wesleyan; and my youngest brother Paul is a toddler, “Pauly-wally” in those days. What memories.

And, of course, it is about the enchiladas. They were scrumptious.

So what thing, what object is laying close by somewhere in your home, and what memories does it hold for you? What are those memories for you? Tastes and smells, faces and voices?

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson

Enchiladas

My sister Mary from Minnesota joined us for thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time drinking coffee, laughing, and telling stories, sharing memories together. Mary is number three in the birth order, four years ahead of me, so we spent a lot of our childhood together. At one point in the festivities I simply gave her some sort of special look while I pointed up at the top of the hutch above our dining room table. I knew she’d remember. And she did. “ENCHILADAS!” she almost screamed with joy.

Up there on top of the hutch sits the copper skillet, the very copper skillet that our grandma Lydia used to make enchiladas; well, the enchilada tortillas. One by one she made them for our extended Hawkinson Christmas family gatherings, when in the late sixties and early seventies there might be thirty or forty of us crowded into their flat on Christiana avenue.

The issue was this, that because those enchiladas were so very delicious, Lydia needed to make, in my estimation, at least two hundred tortillas, one by one, on that little skillet, let alone all the fillings — hers were mildly, rather “Swedishly” seasoned ground beef, cheese, and brown beans. Like being faced with Nanna’s Maple Bars or Oma’s Rye Bread or a bag of Fritos (you pick your favorite food you cannot stop eating here), the over/under on these enchiladas was 5. I think one year my cousin Tim set the record at 12.

Of course Lydia didn’t have to do this — and how she got all those corn tortillas ready to cook up I’ll never know, but wish I did. She could have made it easy on herself; after all there were only two houses to the corner and Foster foods. But there she will ever remain, laboring with love, carefully cooking up hundreds of enchiladas for the generations to gulp down.

And of course, it’s not really about the enchiladas, but about the sacred memories of those childhood christmases, and so many who were there who aren’t anymore, and so many who I rarely if ever see anymore. There’s uncle Zen with his homemade jul must (root beer!). Aunt Barb, ever the preschool teacher, gathers us kids to tell us a Christmas story. Grandpa Eric, ever the stoic, sits in the corner with a sly and delighted smirk. My dad is in his early forties and full of life! And mom at some point gets to the piano and gets us all singing. My oldest Cousin Tom is back from Illinois Wesleyan; and my youngest brother Paul is a toddler, “Pauly-wally” in those days. What memories.

And, of course, it is about the enchiladas. They were scrumptious.

So what thing, what object is laying close by somewhere in your home, and what memories does it hold for you? What are those memories for you? Tastes and smells, faces and voices?

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson

Christmas Reflections

A couple of nights ago, I went searching through my shelves for my next book. And I stumbled, as habitual book buyers like myself tend to, on a little volume that I’d received last year and forgotten.

My sister ordered it for Christmas, but due to really high demand I didn’t receive it until January – and then I couldn’t bring myself to read it, a collection of essays curated by Emma Thompson and Greg Wise called Last Christmas. It wasn’t the right time of year. I was in the post-holiday funk, exacerbated by another COVID wave, and the very last thing I wanted to do was think more about Christmas, eleven and a half months away.

But now, the time seemed right. Deep into Advent, the days growing shorter and the nights longer, wading into the complex feelings of this holiday season, I was primed and ready.

And what I’ve found so far is a delight. The book takes reflections from a wide variety of people – political refugees, famous actors, people who have experienced homelessness, and well-known tv hosts – and puts them all together under the theme of memories of Christmases past and hopes for future ones.

The entries are arranged alphabetically by author’s first name, so there’s no organization based on how famous the people are, or their life situations. Already, I’ve read a reflection by someone who experienced homelessness, by someone whose memories of Christmas Eve and a large family gathering are very much in line with my own Christmases at Grandma’s while growing up, and (I was delighted to find), a vicar.

I am reminded, reading these essays, that Christmas is a time fraught with feelings for many of us – whether or not we would describe ourselves as Christ-followers. It represents a season of great hope and possibility; a time of grief and deep nostalgia; a chance to embrace and celebrate, or a time of high risk for illness, injury, recurring addictions.

It can bring out the best or worst in all of us. That’s part of what makes it so compelling.

The vicar, a clergyman in the Anglican church named Ashley Collishaw, writes in his essay that “Christmas is part of the day job, and yet the weight of the season has never diminished. It still holds magic and meaning.”

But what is the magic and meaning for us?

I have been thinking about this a lot. I’m reading this devotional by Kate Bowler, and watching this video in Sunday School; lighting my Advent candles and wondering: How do I prepare for Jesus’ coming? How do I see that Emmanuel, God with us, is already here? What can I do? What’s stopping me?

I hope you’re taking time in this Advent season to ponder these questions, too. (Spoiler alert: there are no easy answers. But I find that’s true of the best questions.)

As I do, I keep returning to a quote that I first heard some seven Christmases ago. It’s from D.L. Mayfield’s Brutally Honest Christmas Letter, which is no longer posted in its entirety, but which you can find pieces of online.

It says: “But perhaps the most significant thing is that Jesus is no longer an abstract person, a walking theology, a list of do’s and don’t’s to me. This is the year I recognized him as my battered, bruised brother, and I see how he never once left my side.”

Perhaps, beyond all the noise of this season, the pain and the hurt, the power and the possibility, the beauty and the longing, we can hear this: that Jesus is by our side. In the muck and mire, on the mountaintop; in the silent night and in the angels’ chorus: he is with us. Now and forever.

Whatever Christmas brings to us this year, or doesn’t; whatever we do to prepare ourselves, or don’t; this much remains true.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

-Pastor Jen