It's only stuff. I understand this intellectually, as I put a rusty cake pan (that should have gone to the trash) into a box . I know the pan is not my mother. But I see a childhood of hundreds of sheet cakes made, decorated, and consumed. That's the pan you use to make a sheet cake. My mother was not a great baker. She did not bake from scratch. She loved boxed cake mixes and prepared foods. She was so happy to be living in a time when everything did not have to be done with the basic ingredients. My rebellion was to learn to make food from scratch, especially baking. I taught myself how to make pies, cakes and bread. My creations required three round cake pans for a fabulous three layer chocolate cake, bread pans for honey whole wheat bread, and pie plates for cherry or lemon meringue pies. If fact, I seldom made sheet cakes but I haven't been able to turn loose of the pan. Did I mention that it is made of old tin and so it is rusted and if not lined with foil it makes the cake taste like rust.
My wise friend, Dona, said when she cleared out her mother's belongings by having a yard sale, she did fine until she saw people picking over her mother's pots and pans. These items of everyday life captured more meaning than antique jewelry or furs.These everyday items become sacred in their constant use. I gave my youngest daughter a wooden spoon that belonged to my mother. The constancy of something used in everyday cooking makes it sacred. These homily things become sacred by a lifetime of touching, a life time of use.
Our lives are made sacred by our daily living. If we see each activity of our life as prayer, each action becomes a sacred pathway. Cooking and washing dishes are both ways of praying, ways of putting creativity in action (especially when we are mindful of God's presence). My mother's godliness was present in her mixing up a cake and serving it to us children. The pan only resents her loving action. Perhaps, now, I will throw the pan away. My children have already signed up to inherit my bread pans.
Blessings, Karen
1 comment:
Reading your blog I thought I had to leave a comment about my mother and her pots and pans and then I saw my name! It was,indeed a moment of terrible grief. I loved to cook and I learned from my mother. The pan that was most difficult to let go was an old pressure cooker without a lid that my mother used to make fudge--peanut butter fudge--my favorite! She would beat and beat it, adding cream in that heavy pan and the result was a fudge that I have never been able to find anywhere else. I tried to make it but never succeeded with results like Mother's. May she RIP!
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