Family Fondue

7/30/2012

One of the prayer forms that I use with my spiritual discovery groups is Gifts of the Day -- taking a brief time to center into attentive silence, asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate the gifts of the past twenty-four hours, letting these flow through our minds and hearts, giving thanks for them.

We've found that these gifts come in many shapes: things we've seen in nature, time with friends and family, a difficult situation that goes well, good food, an insight from reading or quiet time, music and art.

Often it is small, specific things that come to mind -- the juicy peach I enjoyed at breakfast, a good talk with a friend, the fiery center of a coneflower lit by noon time sunshine. I record some of these in my photos, generally the nature-oriented ones.

This past weekend, a big gift was the chance to spend some unexpected time with my youngest sister. On very short notice, Deb rode with a friend whose mother had just died to Ohio, and Judy and I drove out and picked her up, bringing her back to Goshen for a couple days. We set aside our plans for cleaning, writing, gardening and blogging, and instead had some good family times, making and eating meals, watching the Olympic opening ceremonies, and hanging out together.

On Saturday Dad made an old family favorite -- fondue, from a recipe that a Swiss friend shared with him years ago