The Cure to World Hunger: My Mother's Cooking

I am an actor. I am an actor and I will never be convinced otherwise. Maybe a little explaining is needed? Well, let me start from the beginning. Before I start, let ye be warned, this is a cynic's tangent. So hide yo wife, hide yo kids, because things are about to get volatile. Now, let's get down to business. Every year my family has a huge Christmas Eve blowout. I don't know why the Creek family chose Christmas Eve to throw the festivities, but it has always been tradition to eat to explosive proportion, then open up our presents which, if you're a big fan of disappointment, will never disappoint. Perhaps, for some reason, everybody fattening up the day before Christmas gives them a head start on yet another of their failed New Year's resolution. And maybe this event wouldn't be something that I blacked out on my calendar with a jumbo sharpie if it weren't my ENTIRE extended family in my parents' single wide trailer. Claustrophobic yet? However, the very worst of it would have to be the cooking.

My mom is under the delusion that she can cook. I don't know when or where in the world she got this notion, but it's as if Martha Stuart got hit with an extraordinary amount of Gamma radiation that turned her green and deadly whenever she was near food... that is my mother. It's like God gave her taste buds as a joke! Anyways, all this bashing is beside the point. Every Christmas Eve, in order to uphold silly traditions, my mom cooks what she would like to call a honey roasted ham, an abomination that has nearly turned me vegetarian on many occasions. This is always followed up by her culinary take on the sponge. The germans in my bloodline that have passed down this family recipe from generation to generation like to call it strudel, but I call it sponge because it has the uncanny ability to suck every bit of moisture out of a person's mouth. However, the fun doesn't stop there.

While my mom may be killer (literally) in the kitchen, she is not the only one diagnosed with this terrible cooking disease. In fact, on christmas eve, the disease becomes an epidemic with my household being the quarantine zone. I think it might be a gene passed through the generations. Anyways, for some reason everyone in my extended family insists that they bring their own baked goodies to have them judged alongside my mom's own chernobyl-stricken monstrosities. And who better to be the judge them than yours truly? That's right, I am the lucky judge of this poison-eating contest, and it is an honor that i wear proudly. It seems that when it comes to judging, I never clock off.

So why am i a great actor? Need I even answer that question? For no one else could hide their contempt for such a holiday get-together behind a smile as well as I. However, in the grand scheme of things, I realize how important this is to my mother and the rest of the family. I put on a smile, both fake and genuine. Fake because I hope that someday they will realize that I am simply baring my teeth and they will no longer feed me their home-made urinal cakes, but genuine in the knowledge that this is one of the few times i get to see my family and for as much as I harp on them, I do love our time together.

Reading the Bible is Community

Reading the bible is community... These words resonate as I look up from the bible, taking a look around the church I find myself sitting in and registering what I see. I see a people, lost, within themselves or something greater. I see a single entity; one made up of hundreds of people with different lives but similar hearts. What is it that ties these people together? It is the brokenness of our lives and the knowledge of our own mortality, fallibility, and ambition to seek out the only one to ever do it right. In the act of putting our own selfishness aside, we find each other. We are brought together by hope and held together by our faith. An ineffable emotion given by something bigger than ourselves is what we crave, and when brought together in the climax of our worship through our reading of the Word... well, as the Good book says, 'ask and you shall receive'.

I look back and see someone sitting alone, maybe seeking out isolation, maybe not having a choice in the matter. So often i find those who seek acceptance turned away, intimidated by the sea of undignified belief flowing over the crowds, or maybe by having laundry list of presumptions confirmed in one sense or another. A feeling that is just as easily removed as it is gained by a kind word or gesture from the frequent fliers in the church, however, often this attention becomes misplaced in introspection or introversion. Sometimes people get so caught up in the act the reading the bible that they forget what it truly teaches; what it really looks like to be in a community full of neighbors loving each other.

To break this in-cohesion is what i seek. I want to throw away the suppositions that have gripped those that find themselves in church for the first time. I too wish to gain the acceptance of a community, but know there is something so much more satisfying in bringing that community to those who may need it more. Not to say that the church needs to be full of guys like me, because in everyone counts. Everyone is a different part of the body of believers that should be delivering their hope to the people. This hope all stems from the communal act of reading the bible. It is this habitual, and sometimes stubborn, faith in an invisible, yet apparent God that gives me the strength and desire to never abandon my faith. All this rooted in the bible, an eternal reminder of what a true community should look be.

The Writing On the Wallet.

A wallet is a very personal item, and although sometimes sitting on it can cause awkward lop-sidedness, owning one is all a part of growing up. It can also be an important part of someone's identity, and although I don't believe in judging a book by it's cover, if you have nothing else to go on other than the contents of someone's wallet, then you can't help but draw conclusions about that individual. This brings me to my favorite subject, myself. What would someone be able to say about my image, based on all the hidden treasures lying dormant inside my folded flap of leather and what would they say about my personality based on that underdeveloped image?

-Well, for one, they would realize that I am filthy rich! I have just over 12 dollars and change in my wallet, which is nothing to scoff at for a college student, I'd say. Someone might also notice that I have two debit cards, one for myself and one from my Dad. This might steer someone towards the assumption that i am trying to spread my wings a bit, but find myself still relying on my roots from time to time.

-No pictures of family, which means i might not have any family or I might simply want to get as far away from my old life as possible. Seeing that I have my Dad's debit card, and knowing how strange it'd be to have a dead man's debit card, they would have to eventually come to the latter as their prediction.

-One Everett CC student ID, with an unflattering picture of one smile-free Jimmy. It could mean that I had to take the picture early that day and I'm far from being a morning person, which would be the truth, or it could mean that I am an entirely unhappy person altogether.

-A library card, covered in grime from underuse, you can see the impression on the middle of the card from my wallet after the card's extended stay. So maybe I am not much of a reader, but I enjoy a good book as much as the next guy.

All in all, someone might be able to draw a conclusion about me from my wallet, but I think it would be anything but accurate. I am very fun-loving, am very fond of running, love God, love people, and relish a great cup of joe. Which makes me wonder if I should consider putting a coffee bean, shoelace, cross, and an empty slot that's is labeled "put your picture here" in my wallet, in case this were to ever happen to me. There are intricacies in everyone that care barely be detected after years of knowing them, let alone a quick looksy into their personal life by snooping through their wallet. Which is why meeting someone will draw a more truthful conclusion than looking through their wallet ever could.