After the soup was cooked and cooling, it was time to lift out the bones - and those stray pieces of stuffing, though they did add flavor; and then add cooked noodles and any other left over vegetables that sounded good. Cut up the turkey that was falling off the bones and stir it in. Bring bread and butter out. Pull out the dish of leftover cranberry sauce as a side dish. Voila! Dinner for a family of seven. What good smells, tastes, times, memories.
But soup was a tradition that was part of every week. Towards the end of the week, I always made soup or stew or pot pie or shepherd's pie from the left over meat and vegetables that were in my refrigerator. My husband's family grew up on soup; my mother-in-law taught me that soup was the way to stretch food, use up leftovers, and go easy on the budget. Waste not, want not. Soup was a hearty, nourishing meal. (Even though some kids secretly threw the peas under the table - as we found out years later.)
Today, at a restaurant, soup is most often an appetizer instead of a meal. And restaurant owners have their leftovers tossed in the trash. So much waste! So much want!
Long ago, a family trip to a restaurant, like Pizza Hut, on Sunday was a special treat, the highlight of the week or month. There would be two big pitchers of pop on the table, and usually one high chair or toddler seat on a big chair. Everyone was excited to sit and be waited on. And with all the chatter-boxes and laughs at the table, the waitress soon became a friend.
Today, the family down to just the two of us, Paul and I eat out often enough that that special zing, that excitement over the rare and unfamiliar, is gone. I miss that simple enchantment. The sense of a special treat in a simple life.
I was talking to a nurse at a Doctor's office yesterday. She was telling me about a favorite memory of hers. Her little boy was about two and a half and crazy about Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur on t.v. My friend and her husband were very poor. That Christmas, they scrimped and saved, bought a few decorations at a D&K store, and managed to put together twenty dollars to buy their son a Barney doll. Her face grew soft with the memory of his wonder and excitement, cuddling his simple present. "It was magical," she sighed.
Paul, my children and I never thought of our simple life, featuring many soup nights and few trips to a restaurant, as lacking in anything. We measured the treasure in our lives by love, laughter, relationships. Love, not possessions, was magic, as my nurse friend said so eloquently.
Lao Tzu expressed a simple life very well: "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the world belongs to you."
Jesus believed exactly the same thing: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 5:3.) The poor in spirit are those who deliberately lead simplified lives. They are content with the little things in life. They only have what they believe they need; often enough, what they have been blessed with already is all that they think they will ever need. They are inwardly free enough to generously share what they have with others.
I have too much clutter to be simple. I know I have accumulated clothes in my closet, boxes of pots, pans, dishes, and books in my basement that I no longer need, that I can give away to those who truly are in need. If only I prioritize my time, I can re-simplify my life. Waste not, want not.
There is one more meaning to the "poor in spirit" that we can take to heart. They are the wise ones who have simplified their spiritual lives, emptied their "inner rooms" of insatiable desires and emotional clutter, so that there is room and space inside for God to fill them. Because they know that all they really need is God. God is their All in All.
So today, in honor of tradition and simplicity, I have put my biggest pot on the stove, put in the turkey carcass, added water and bouillon. I've thrown in chopped celery and onion and a package of baby carrots. While my pot simmers for an hour, I'll cook whole grain noodles. My husband will occasionally sneak into the kitchen, lift the lid, and sniff appreciatively. In my freezer I have some peas to add to the pot when my soup is cooked, and in the frig some tasty bread and butter, and a dish of cranberry sauce to place on our table as relish. A good soup makes for a good life.
One good pot of soup made by lovingly, carefully gathering together all the good scraps of food that would otherwise not have been tasted, is a treasure in itself. One good life, made by lovingly and carefully gathering together all the people and experiences that might have been wasted, is a treasure fit for eternity.