Supper on Monday night, January 13, 2025, is chili and cornbread.

When you read this on Tuesday, the meal will be history. As I’m writing this on Monday evening, after a day at the hospital and a walk at the mall, Nancy is mixing the wet and dry ingredients, warming the chili. And I just heard the beep that says the oven is up to temperature.

The cornbread will be in the oven soon.

Every Sunday, I stand in the chapel and talk for a bit, unpacking some text from the Bible.  At the end of the time, we talk to God about daily bread. It sounds like a metaphor. But on Monday night, January 13, 2025, daily bread will be cornbread. With honey and butter. And chili (without beans).

In about twenty minutes, we’ll watch the local news and eat together. And we’ll ask God to care for our kids on this side of the world and the other. We’ll be grateful for the sheer ordinariness of our lives, aware of people with burned houses uncertain where their bread will come from today. We’ll be aware of how cold it will be in Fort Wayne tonight, and all that comes with the cold for people who are in the tents around downtown.

The people without cornbread, without daily bread.

I haven’t heard the timer yet, though Nancy has brought her water bottle to put on her side of the sofa.

The cornbread will be ready soon.

And so, “Give us this day our daily (corn)bread. And forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Daily bread. Daily forgiveness.

We worry too much about fancy, I fear. And not enough about sustenance.

Dear ones, I’m talking with God about you tonight.

And going to get my cornbread.

Amen.