麻豆约拍

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Harry Baker

Good morning.

One thing I never thought I would miss would be the commute. After 16 months of my average journey time being the 10 seconds from my bed to the performance area that is my laptop on the kitchen table, I have found it genuinely exhilarating to be back on trains and buses, be back in this in-between space of dead time to fill with either reading, sleeping, listening to music or more recently podcasts. One podcast I have just got into is Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Each week they have a different guest go through what their dream meal would be at a restaurant, from starter through to dessert including a side and a drink.

As well as it prompting me to consider my own choices, and how strongly I feel about still vs sparkling water or whether I would go for poppadoms or bread, I have loved hearing how almost every person鈥檚 favourite meal has a specific memory attached. So many would take their family recipe over a restaurant version of a meal, and certain choices are there because of who it was shared with at the time as much as quality of the food itself.

During lockdown, cooking became the equivalent of my commute. When work desk and dining table were one and the same having an hour to focus on nothing but trying to make something tasty was a perfect way to transition from one headspace to another. Despite there only ever being the two of us we would make note of recipes that went well that we might later share with others. Sure enough in July we had friends round for a Christmas dinner 6 months delayed, and a week ago when when our Syrian friends came to stay and I woke up to a homemade falafel spread, I genuinely could have cried with happiness.

Nurturing God, thank you for the food in our lives. Thank you for the special occasions and the daily bread, and for those that we might sit around the table with, old friends and new. We pray for those that do not have enough to eat, and we thank you for those that work to try and provide for them too.

Amen