So back before Christmas, my new friend Rosa Lee Harden invited us over to have dinner with her old friends, Sara Miles and Paul Fromberg. Rosa Lee (whose name I love to say in my head) is the “Canon for Money and Meaning” at the Cathedral of All Souls. No, I do not know what that means either, and I think Rosa Lee is still exploring that one. There have been several conversations at the Cathedral about how money, meaning, and the church. I’ve been invited, probably because my job as a fundraiser is a least theoretically about money and meaning. I had not been able to make one yet.
And so I really did not know Rosa Lee and her husband Kevin Jones well, but an invitation to dinner is always good. Whoever these people were that she wanted us to meet, I thought it would be fun to hang out with other All Souls people and get to know Kevin and Rosa Lee a little bit better. So we RSVPed, and I offered to help put together some childcare. Rosa Lee said to just plan to come on over. It started to seem like this would be a cross between a group of church nerds and a Warren Wilson party where all the babies are running around and the dogs are fighting. I was looking forward to that.
Then on Tuesday the Bishop came to visit MANNA FoodBank, where I work. Porter Taylor, the Bishop of Western North Carolina, is a great reader and teacher, so it should not have been a surprise that he would have some book recommendations as we talked. Specifically, we talked about how being a part of the work of ending hunger could infuse new life into a parish congregation. Porter said, “the best person I have know who has written about this is Sara Miles.” I almost fell out of my chair. I was having dinner with her on Thursday.
I went out that afternoon and got her book, take this bread. Read the book. I read it by Thursday dinner. That’s possible, but I don’t recommend it because there is a joy to being immersed in this story that is a shame to use up all at once. The joy for me came from her honesty about finding faith through skepticism and growing that faith through a rather literal adoption of the commission Jesus gave to Peter (“Do you love me?” “Yes, Lord!” “Feed my sheep.”)
I’ve been to the spot in Galilee where that commission is supposed to have been given. I have entered into the work of ending hunger in Western North Carolina. Still, though, there are days when it is about numbers and cases and just about everything but giving a hungry person some bread. But, of course, I’m the hungry one. I am the one who is looking to be nourished by the Spirit. And I’m the one who experiences spiritual famine when I think my work is about gross receipts or finished publications or a bimonthly paycheck. The one absolute luxury I have is knowing that I help feed people every day.
Sara Miles articulated that for me with a journalist’s skill for relating a story rooted in experience. Philosophy is good. Theology is good. Science is good. But experience is, in the end, what we really have. It’s what we have to give, and it’s what we are allowed to receive. Sara and Paul’s experience with extending hospitality based in gratitude for God’s grace is a powerful witness to me. I expect to be fed by it to just the extent that I share it as much as I can.