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| Bread and welcome |
Most people don't view someone's summer vacation as stimulating reading. Yawn. . .
This is more of a "homecoming" kind of vacation. After graduating from high school, I left home to be an exchange student in Finland, that was (ahem, and cough, cough) 44 years ago, at the ripe old age of 17. One might have lost touch with those shy Finnish people. Gosh, I have lost touch with so many of my old high school buddies and almost all of my college buddies, save a precious couple of them. No, this is different, it was like leaving a piece of my heart when I left Finland. The network of depth, honesty, and love has gone much deeper.
I love sharing this trip with Bill, we started our relationship as high school friends - in my year book, he wished me well on my travels. After our marriage, and a few years later he made his first trip to Finland, we were expecting our first child. Now, years later he is here again, learning new Finnish words. This visit, he has already met most people at least once. Places of the heart are filled with love transferred to and from deep relationships. Meeting new friends, and literally old friends, in new homes and old places. In town, we walked by a bakery with the door open and the iconic smell of pulla wafted onto the street. Pulla is the bread of coffee shared. Pulla is the item most homes had on hand for any guest who may drop by. Many people baked their own pulla when I was 17; I have learned, but time usually prohibits. Now, (and back then) it was a staple in any bakery. The smell of cardamon, cream, and sugar says "welcome home" as best anything could.
There is something about sharing bread with people that is as old as time itself. We do it in our homes all around the world, we share it when we enjoy coffee or tea, we do it in church, it usually is delivered to the table shortly after we sit down in a restaurant. The top picture is one of just the flat rye breads available in one of the first grocery stores we visited this trip. The other is of a pulla bun.
Next week the Church will begin a 5 week series of readings about bread. "I am the bread of life", feeding of five thousand, God revealed in the breaking of bread. . . From those who relish a basket of garlic knots to those who share pulla, bread is the food of love and homecoming.
