There is Abundance in Simplicity

Last night I had the happiest meal of my life. It was simple. The conversation was simple. The ingredients were simple. The table was simple. The love was simple.

The extended Metta family, meaning the my fellow mentees, our facilitators, and the Metta staff including Micheal Nagler ate together last night.

Pancho had come back from working the Free Farmer’s Market this weekend with beautiful greens and beets. Chris had some fresh zucchini from his backyard. Shannon brought some tofu. And grains, lentils and broccoli seemed to magically appear, although I’m pretty sure that Chris generously contributed these as well.

The ingredients were spread out on the counter and a team of five of us went to work making dinner for 15, but not before Chris asked, “Is this enough food? Do we need to get more?”

Jay chopped vegetables. Audrey prepared the tofu. I took the easy way out and took charge of boiling rice. Chris helped where ever he was needed, and Pancho used his imagination to create the most amazing salad dressing I’ve ever tasted! We talked as we prepared the food. Well, most of us talked as we prepared the food. For Pancho it was Silent Monday and he was deep in a day of silence. Although in many ways he was the most communicative of all. As he prepared his salad dressing he needed taste testers of course. And since he wasn’t speaking, he couldn’t demand, “Come over hear and taste this.” So, he came to us. With a leafy green dipped in dressing in his hands and a genuine smile on his face, he fed each of us the dressing looking for reactions to see what needed to be added. It was a beautiful moment in my eyes. A true moment of connection, service, and peace.

When the meal was ready we laid each of the dishes on a long table that was set up in the living room, and even the setting up of the table was done with love and laughter. Chris and Nick pulled five pieces of wood out from under the sofa in the living room and set up a table that was six inches off of the ground and fit fifteen people around the outside. Pillows were set around the outside plates were placed with forks for everyone.

We looked at the food was sitting in the middle and someone said, “This table right now is a paradigm of abundance.” We all smiled and laughed. Someone else said, “Do you remember when we started and weren’t sure that we had enough food?”

We ate our meal and told stories. Ketan added spices to some of the lentils so that we could have “real Indian dal” and we laughed at his excitement and the way the spice caught me by surprise and burned my mouth.

It sounds like a regular meal in so many regards, but the intention was different. Every moment, every step in preparation of the meal and every step in the actualization (pardon the awkwardness here, I’m trying not to use the word “execution”) was so full of love, service, connectedness and joy that the food tasted better.

I often feel awkward at dinner parties if everyone is speaking and I have no conversation to join. This time I did not. I felt surround by such good energy and love that it didn’t even cross my mind that I may have been out of place.

I feel that if I go on trying to describe this meal any longer that it will lose its magic, and my readers won’t understand anyway. So, I’m going to end here. But believe me when I say there is abundance in simplicity.