Dinner time, and the living is easy...

I had not been feeling well this morning, but I started feeling better by this afternoon. I decided on two separate dinner menus for today: either gluten-free baked penne or soup and sandwiches plus a salad. It must be the Italian in me that wants to make that much for dinner tonight. Maybe it's also a reminder of Sunday dinners at my grandparents' house after church, where my Italian Catholic grandmother would go to Mass where she and my grandfather attended or sometimes go to church with us if we had something special going on that Sunday. Afterwards, we'd rush home, change our clothes, and then head directly over to Grandma and Pop-pop Weiss's house for dinners just like mine tonight. There was usually pasta, but sometimes it was something else like beef roast, ham, or chicken.

Sometimes, Grandma and Pop-pop would go to Mass on Saturday night if they were babysitting for my cousins on a Sunday when my aunt and uncle were working. But we'd still have dinner with them after we got home from church and spent time with our cousins playing outside (and getting chased out of the house by my grandmother's wooden spoon held tightly in her fist so we wouldn't bug her while she was cooking.) Sometimes, Grandma would let me help because she knew I love to cook. And when my brother, Jason, got a little older, he'd also help Grandma cook.

I didn't always go over to her house as an adult for Sunday dinners, but when I did go on Sundays or holidays, it was still a noisy, crazy, fun-filled, long and lazy dinner that lasted all afternoon and into the evening. My mom often said that having dinner every Sunday with her Pennsylvania German extended family were like that. And when we would eat dinner with Mammy and Pappy Gross (my mother's parents), we still had the noisy, crazy, fun-filled meals. 

In a way, I feel like I have a bit of a split personality because I have an interesting ethnic background. I'm German, Italian, Czech, and Pennsylvania German (or as some, say Pennsylvania Dutch, because it's a subculture of the greater German culture and the word German word of Deutsch for the subculture became anglicized into Dutch.) I thought it was totally normal to eat spaghetti and meatballs and an antipasto salad followed by shoo-fly pie, or kielbasa or pork and sauerkraut followed by a cannoli. And I notice many of my quirks and mannerisms are influenced by both sides of my family and ethnic background. 

But maybe what's more important to me now that I'm older isn't my ethnicity. I appreciate it and thank God for it, but I also thank God he gave me a new identity as his daughter. I appreciate any time I do get to spend with my friends and family over meals. Sometimes, that happens after church on Sundays, and sometimes that happens on other nights of the week. But I am more grateful I get to slide into a pew at church on Sundays, and even if I eat lunch alone afterwards, at least I got out of the house to worship with others that morning.

Several times, the senior pastor at Jordan UCC has often jokingly said something like "I know we're all in a rush to get in line at the diner so we don't miss the brunch specials," during a worship service. But he's often said it in context of being thankful for the time we spend as a congregation to be together in worship. And on any given Sunday, I have stopped at the Parkland Diner just down the street from Jordan with family and friends, and there is certainly the after church crowd mixed in with the late-sleepers out to brunch, and we're all bleary eyed and in need of coffee to wake us up while we're waiting for a table. In my mind, it's been a good thing to have the fellowship whenever it happens, and taking it outside of the four walls of the church makes it special. 

So next Sunday, if you want to join me, we'll have Sunday dinner someplace. And there is no reason to eat and run, because sometimes the best fellowship happens with the noisy, crazy, fun-filled, long and lazy dinners that last all afternoon and into the evening.