Finding Pie Town
About fifteen years ago when we were dreaming of moving to New Mexico from North Carolina, my husband and I were traveling through the southwestern part of the United States. Along one of our travels, from Albuquerque to Phoenix, we stopped in a little settlement known as Pie Town. I remember thinking what a quaint and funny name of a town. As we drove through Pie Town, we noticed a small restaurant and decided to stop and, with a name like Pie Town, have some pie. Imagine our surprise when we are told there is no pie. “No pie in Pie Town?” I thought and that notion stayed with me.
People have often asked how I get an idea for a story, what interests me, how do I start. And the answer is something like the situation of finding no pie in Pie Town. I began to think about how often names of places or ascribed roles for people lend others to make assumptions. We assume a small town will be welcoming and easy for newcomers to integrate. We assume a church will be a safe place, a loving and warm place. We assume mothers will be present for their children and children won’t die. Once you think about it, life is rarely what we expect. People behave in ways we never could have guessed and life is certainly full of surprises.
Having served as a pastor of several churches, I am often intrigued by what church members think about themselves. Most people in church will proudly announce about themselves that they are a “loving” place, a “welcoming and hospitable” place. And yet, in my experience, this is not always the case. Yes, churches can be quite welcoming and hospitable to the longtime members, the families that are connected to the area, the children who grew up in the church. But for newcomers, churches can often feel alienating and cold. As communities, as churches, as towns, as people, we are often not what we appear and we are not always as good as we think we are. It was this notion of irony that interested me when I began this story.
Now, many years after my first visit to Pie Town, I have discovered that there is a place that serves pie. The Pie-O-Neer Café has been open for more than ten years and has become quite successful. The owner, Kathy Knapp has found a great place for herself in Pie Town and I’m happy to include a recipe from the Pie-O-Neer with a few other regional recipes at the end of the book. I hope you will enjoy! And if you’re in the neighborhood of Pie Town, New Mexico, please stop by and have a slice. Tell them I sent you!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Month of Love, February
The Month of Love
This is the month in which we celebrate Valentine’s Day, the day honoring romantic love, and subsequently, happens to be a month in which there are a lot of weddings and proposals for marriage. This past weekend I was with a young couple planning their sacred event and we were talking about the vows. They were trying to decide whether to use traditional ones or write their own and they asked me what words I thought were important to say and if there was a wedding that I remembered because of the vows. I immediately thought of one from my first parish.
Ronny and Peggy were in their early twenties when I met them. Members of the local community, they dropped by the church where I served to ask about having their wedding there. I explained to them that non-members of the church who wanted to use the building for their wedding were asked to attend church a couple of times, to get to know the folks in church and to allow the church folks to get to know them. They attended worship a few Sundays and discovered that they liked the community and decided to join.
Not long after first meeting the couple, Ronny was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to his liver and lungs. He started aggressive treatments and the wedding was postponed. It became clear soon after the treatments began that his prognosis was not good and the three of us had many conversations about whether or not marriage was the best option for them. After a few months when they were given a terminal diagnosis, the cancer having spread to Ronny’s brain, they both came to me with the prayerful and clear desire to go forward with their wedding.
It was decided to have the ceremony during the church service on a Sunday morning. This was the day when the entire community was gathered for worship and became a wedding service in which we all made a promise to love and care and stand with each other from that day forward. There were love songs sung by the choir and the congregation; and my sermon was based on a psalm that begins, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble,” and goes on to say, “I will trust in God’s steadfast love.” We talked about choosing to walk together even if the path is laden with trouble and difficulty and as the couple made promises to walk together, the congregation made them as well. There were tears of joy and sorrow and I will never forget the intimate and deep connection I felt with the couple and with the gathered community. I felt as if the wedding was completely about love and that the church was really being church. Promises were made in truthfulness and as I came to see, were kept. It wasn’t too many months later that Ronny died, his wife at his side, his church family close by.
As I shared this story with the young couple planning their ceremony, I saw their surprise and sadness. It probably wasn’t the wedding story about meaningful vows that they were hoping to hear; but it is the one that I will never forget.
This month as we celebrate romantic love at Valentine’s Day and at the weddings we’ll attend perhaps we have offered to us the chance to be mindful of the kind of love that goes a little deeper than romance and involves a little more than just saying some words. For surely, to promise love takes more than just two people and more than just repeating something written on a piece of paper. Real love, like a memorable wedding, pushes us to promise our care, concern, and presence to each other even as we walk in the midst of trouble. Because if we can’t walk that walk, then even if the words are poignant and beautiful, we really shouldn’t talk the talk.
This is the month in which we celebrate Valentine’s Day, the day honoring romantic love, and subsequently, happens to be a month in which there are a lot of weddings and proposals for marriage. This past weekend I was with a young couple planning their sacred event and we were talking about the vows. They were trying to decide whether to use traditional ones or write their own and they asked me what words I thought were important to say and if there was a wedding that I remembered because of the vows. I immediately thought of one from my first parish.
Ronny and Peggy were in their early twenties when I met them. Members of the local community, they dropped by the church where I served to ask about having their wedding there. I explained to them that non-members of the church who wanted to use the building for their wedding were asked to attend church a couple of times, to get to know the folks in church and to allow the church folks to get to know them. They attended worship a few Sundays and discovered that they liked the community and decided to join.
Not long after first meeting the couple, Ronny was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to his liver and lungs. He started aggressive treatments and the wedding was postponed. It became clear soon after the treatments began that his prognosis was not good and the three of us had many conversations about whether or not marriage was the best option for them. After a few months when they were given a terminal diagnosis, the cancer having spread to Ronny’s brain, they both came to me with the prayerful and clear desire to go forward with their wedding.
It was decided to have the ceremony during the church service on a Sunday morning. This was the day when the entire community was gathered for worship and became a wedding service in which we all made a promise to love and care and stand with each other from that day forward. There were love songs sung by the choir and the congregation; and my sermon was based on a psalm that begins, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble,” and goes on to say, “I will trust in God’s steadfast love.” We talked about choosing to walk together even if the path is laden with trouble and difficulty and as the couple made promises to walk together, the congregation made them as well. There were tears of joy and sorrow and I will never forget the intimate and deep connection I felt with the couple and with the gathered community. I felt as if the wedding was completely about love and that the church was really being church. Promises were made in truthfulness and as I came to see, were kept. It wasn’t too many months later that Ronny died, his wife at his side, his church family close by.
As I shared this story with the young couple planning their ceremony, I saw their surprise and sadness. It probably wasn’t the wedding story about meaningful vows that they were hoping to hear; but it is the one that I will never forget.
This month as we celebrate romantic love at Valentine’s Day and at the weddings we’ll attend perhaps we have offered to us the chance to be mindful of the kind of love that goes a little deeper than romance and involves a little more than just saying some words. For surely, to promise love takes more than just two people and more than just repeating something written on a piece of paper. Real love, like a memorable wedding, pushes us to promise our care, concern, and presence to each other even as we walk in the midst of trouble. Because if we can’t walk that walk, then even if the words are poignant and beautiful, we really shouldn’t talk the talk.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
