Monday, March 14, 2022

The photo is pretty extraordinary (see below.)  Not one of terror or dismembered bodies but of two pen stirring what pot of a stew in a pot so large that I think it would be as large as my kitchen.  It’s on the website of a new organization called World Central Kitchen, comprised of volunteer cooks dedicated to feeding Ukrainian refugees in Poland and bringing food into Ukraine.

They are feeding 100,000 people a day.  And you thought a dinner party for twelve took an effort.  If the snow that swept through New Jersey but missed parts of New England made you feel cold, imagine trudging through subfreezing temperatures with your child trying to flee Russian bombardment.

The volunteers at World Central Kitchen are feeding refugees not only in Poland but also in Moldova where several thousand have fled and are looking for good hot meals for their children, the most vulnerable victims of this terrible war.

Prayer for the Day

As we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” help us to more than pray,
    For as we know, without food so many die needless deaths;
As we say, “Thy will be done,” let us remember we are instruments
   Of your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Grant, Compassionate One, that we reflect your mercy
   And grace to many who feel without compassion or grace.
In the name of the One who fed the multitudes,
   Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.

Thoughts for the Day

no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well.
         -Warsan Shire, Somali British poet

They didn’t make it. Tetiana. Perebyinis, 43, and her two children, Mykyta, 18, and Alisa, 9, along with a church volunteer who was helping them, Anatoly Berezhnyi, 26, were killed on Sunday as they dashed across the concrete remnants of a damaged bridge in their town of Irpin, trying to evacuate to Kyiv. “The world needs to know.”
       - Serhiy Perebynis, husband, who had been caring for his mother

How lonely sits the city that was once full of people!
   How like a widow se has become, she that was great among he nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces, has become a vassal.
   She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
       Lamentations of Jeremiah 1: 1-2