I think in our Thursday night dinners we may have reached the point we’re trying for—whatever is signified by the abused and almost meaningless word, “community.”
Community is not hanging out.
Community is not talking to people you know and share interests with.
Community is not talk.
Community is not getting to know people.
Community is not …
It is a word that gets thrown around like a bomb. Some people read a book and become experts on it.
I don’t know what we have. Wait, yes I do. We had minor Pentecost. Dinner was: grilled tilapia (about which more later), rice with curry seasoning, some kind of Indian deviled eggs, and green beans.
Dinner was: Americans, young, old, poor, not so poor (ok, let’s face it, I am rich), African, Hispanic. It looked like our church in its better moments.
So Mapigano and I have always talked about how much we are alike. Melissa was, like Noella is to David, much taller than me. We have two boys that frustrate the devil out of our attempts to get them to behave. We like soccer. And then we find we love to grill. And eat goat. He haltingly learned to say “grillmeister.” I found an awesome deal on tilapia (feeding I guess 15 people on about $9 worth of fish. Rubbed in chili powder, lime, and salt. While Mapigano and I grilled, he started saying how happy they were that I had lenga lenga in the garden. Then we talked about how good goat is on the grill. He asked if he could cook next week. “We’ll go see The Arab,” he said, “and get a whole goat, and share it half and half.” And later, “When I eat goat and fou-fou, I feel good.”
On the one hand, it can be hard to handle—the blur of languages, the kids running through, the different foods. It could be hard to enter. But the riches of it all! To see us brought together around common knowledge—the Cubans know all about the problem of Cabinda, because Cuban troops fought in
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