I remember the first time I met my Scottish Jesus friends. I showed up at Hannah's birthday party without ever meeting her. She made marzipan fruit, butterfly tea sandwiches, and generally overwhelmed me with amazingness. The icing on the cake was making some sort of Bible joke with Andy and the guys. Then Andy made some crack about how it was a pity that Dave wasn't better looking and I fell in love with this group of friends.
That same feeling has been hard to replicate. I've had new work friends, school friends, more new school friends, and new Jesus friends in every city. That confidence in a whole group of people and feeling exactly like you belong isn't found often, but I have been lucky to catch glimpses of it. Today was one such instance.
I went out to Peruvian chicken with a group of new church friends for lunch. There was a lot of back and forth over what people were getting-- some people were splitting half chicken combos while others contemplated getting platters-- until somehow a plan was hatched and 6 of us went in on sharing "Family Special #2," which included 2 chickens, 4 sides and drinks. Later, contently drinking my sugar sweetened beverage (which I almost never drink) with my greasy chicken, I glanced up to notice one of the guys who'd gotten an order by himself. Along with chicken, his boxed lunch also had broccoli and peppers and other colorful nutrients.
Moi: Oh yeah. Vegetables. I like that we never even considered it as a side [in our very lengthy and heated discussions in line over how best to utilize our 4 sides].
Someone points to our double order of plantains-- "Fruit."
Someone else points to our order of fries-- "Vegetables."
Someone picks at the scallions in our rice. And the green dipping sauce. "More vegetables."
"Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about."
Moi: I'm sorry guys. I was wrong. We ordered plenty of vegetables.
Family style meals without vegetables. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
