I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

by Shauna Niequist

Let’s all agree not to go back to that old way where the house has to be perfect and the food has to be perfect and the dishes have to be perfect. Get a sheet pan and a picnic blanket and have everyone bring a handful of things from their own kitchens. Because it never was about the food. It never was about the dishes or the fancy kitchen tools or the complicated techniques. We just wanted to connect. This is how deeply the value of hospitality is planted inside us. Look how creative we’ve gotten. Something miraculous happens when we gather. There’s a connection, a healing, a nourishing that goes beyond the nutrients and calories and vitamins and minerals. There’s a nourishing of spirit, and if we’ve learned anything at all through the pandemic, it’s that we really need that connection, all of us. We need to see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices. We need to laugh together and cry together and sit in silence together. We were made for connection, for sitting shoulder to shoulder, for carrying one another, walking together.