The Feast

It only took three calls home over the past three weeks, but I finally got the crock pot out of our laundry room (well, laundry closet, if that even) and made some Italian beef for tonight’s dinner. Thursdays are going to be a night where the four of us are going to take some time to intentionally be together. We are not sure exactly what form that will be taking, but it will at least include making sure that we are all home for a dinner together. When our four busy schedules don’t really mesh, Thursday nights will be an axis point for our lives as a community. We will share our highs and lows of the day and talk about whatever issues arise over a meal. It was fun to make a dinner for “the family.”

On Thursdays, lunch is served at the Campus. The participants enjoy this because they don’t have to eat at the Downtown Rescue Mission, where they are treated like cattle, and they don’t have to worry about riding on a crowded bus or walking to a church that is serving. Today’s lunch was especially good, as it always is when the group from the Brentwood United Methodist Church comes to cook the food and serve it. Though there are certainly still many of the trappings of homeless life included in Campus meals – needing a ticket, lining up outdoors in the rain, waiting for your number to be called – today’s meal had a certain joy to it. The Brentwood UMC women made taco salads. The great thing about this group is the respect that they show to our participants by offering them quite generous portions, high quality foods, and hospitality. Homemade oatmeal raisin cookies were at every place. The heaping taco salad was made with quality ingredients. The best part for our participants is that they could have refills on their iced tea (something most of us take for granted as being normal) that was flavored with fresh lemon. This group always brings 200 servings, though we only give out 100 tickets so no one has to be turned away and even the staff gets to eat. It was by not being stingy (as some groups that come in regrettably are) and offering friendly service that this group of Methodists provided a great lunch and the opportunity for the homeless and the housed to together enjoy an hour of fellowship.

In the afternoon, I, along with my fellow Campus interns Jana and John, Jana’s mom, and Edith the Campus art teacher, headed over to the Middle Tennessee headquarters for America’s Second Harvest at MetroCenter. Our purpose for being there was actually to make lunches to be served at Saturday’s Campus Teen Forum event. We got our aprons on and washed our hands and got to work under the supervision of an eccentric gentleman who heads up the culinary arts center portion of the Second Harvest headquarters, which is the place that coordinates shipments for the food banks in the 50 or so counties in the Middle Tennessee region. I packaged cookies (which were still warm and smelled great, I might add), while the others worked to assemble sandwiches. After we were done working, the three Campus interns took a tour of the very impressive Second Harvest facility. The warehouse looked like Sam’s Club, and we went into a freezer the size of an airplane hanger where the temperature was -10 degrees. The Middle Tennessee Second Harvest facility has technology that allows them to repackage foods that are given to them in large quantities. They were able to ship TV dinner style meals and “boil bags” (bags full of food that you boil) to Hurricane Katrina victims last year, and are applying those methods to regular food distribution. It was great to see another group of people who are dedicated to ending hunger, and who have given us so much at the Campus, through programs like Nashville’s Table, where leftovers from hotels, restaurants, and grocery stores are collected and given to anti-hunger organizations.

The importance of sharing a meal with others is something we often take for granted. There is truly something holy in breaking bread. No wonder the stories of Jesus often center around a meal. We become equals in our common need for nourishment, and neighbors in conversation and sharing. In communing with one another over God's gift of food, we truly get a foretaste of the feast to come.