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The art of opening doors

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Prague Generic3

My friends and captors on Charles’ Bridge, February 2014.

“Just pull the handle down,” Kat said in a tone that suggested I didn’t know how to open a door.

“I tried that.”

The large double doors of the Old Jewish Synagogue in Prague sat there lazily, refusing to budge. I felt mocked.

“Maybe it’s closed already,” said Kačka. She too attempted to open the door – like Americans don’t ever do that sort of thing and must not know how.

Kat smirked at both of us – it’s a friendly kind of smirk that Czechs are good at. The clouds rolled over our heads and began misting us with cold droplets of sky, so we walked to the other side of the narrow lane and through a door (which did open for us) to ask about the Synagogue. It was late Friday afternoon so Prague’s Jewish Quarter was settling down for the Sabbath. We, however, were just getting started.

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Cranberry Sauce: A recipe for disaster

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Thanksgiving 2013I come from a family of mostly competent cooks. If you ignore the ones not tall enough to reach the counter and the ones who spent more time perfecting the craft of eating growing up, my family’s cooking skills basically span the whole length of the spectrum from “Spontaneous experimental enthusiast” (just dump ALL THE GOOD THINGS into a pot/onto a grill) to “Stubbornly traditional” (if you’re not using a meat thermometer you are WRONG).

I was a member of the eating-skills focus group in our home.

I thrived in college. I’m a comfort food monster and I’m really good at settling for plastic that has been labeled as food by faceless corporations around the country. God bless those sodium-packing princes of capitalism. Cheese puffs saved my life in 2011.

Different story. The one I’m trying to tell right now involves me actually stepping into a kitchen to help with our expat-Thanksgiving.

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A place like home

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How often do we have to be told ‘there’s no place like home’ before we believe that it’s true? And once we leave the welcome mat on our front doorstep for good, looking for our own windows to hang curtains in, what do we really lose?

Most of my friends left home for college at about eighteen. They didn’t only move out from under the roof they grew up under, but away from the churches and communities they grew up with. Transplanted into entirely new surroundings, they start over, making new friends and entering the next exciting stage in life.

I never left for college – I got my A.A. from a school ten minutes away from my house, so I stayed home after graduating high school. When I finally “got out on my own” – and believe me, I was aching to spread my wings a little – I was surprised to find the things I missed most from home weren’t my friends or my siblings or Little Caesar’s five dollar pizzas. I missed my parents, the women from my Bible Study, and the families in my church who provided me so much encouragement as I struggled to make this mission trip to Prague a reality. I yearned for the continual springs of wisdom and encouragement I was blessed with in San Diego. (Jerry and Marilyn have been incredible in this area and I go to them almost as much as I would go to my own parents – though I think they appreciate that I don’t flop into their room at 11pm and say things like, “I just can’t handle this anymore!” …Mom and Dad, you two deserve sainthood).

What I’ve also discovered is that there are people who will help shepherd, comfort …and feed you wherever you end up! So about once a month, I visit one such family who’ve been good enough to open their arms and their fridge.

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