Lasagna Love

WThis week, I found myself making a lasagna.  A friend was struggling, and a group of mamas were working together to make sure she didn't have to worry about dinner prep for a few days.  Despite making dozens of lasagnas in my (very limited) culinary career, this lasagna hit me with the sacred space of it all.  If it weren't for the random collection of magnets, pretend food, and barbie shoes littering my kitchen floor, I might have taken my shoes off.  I'm talking THAT sacred of space, people.

As I layered the ingredients, I thought about all the layers of hardship that I had prepared lasagnas for.  New parents slogging through sleep deprivation.  Families trying to navigate grief, mental illness, or cancer.  As I've watched these families accept my lasagna, I've decided that asking for help is one of the bravest things any human can do.  Asking for help when you are feeling rough around the edges is pure heroism, in my opinion.  Because if I'm showing up with a lasagna, it's because figuring out what's for dinner has been lost in a sea of scared, lonely, unshowered, confused, dirty-clothes-scattered-around-the-house overwhelm.  And whether its sleep deprivation or a mental or physical diagnosis creating the overwhelm, the risk is still the same.  The risk of being scrutinized, of all that time spent keeping up appearances and niceties going out the window.  So these lasagna-eaters are real heroes, I tell ya.  Not just because they graciously accept my cooking as a "gift" but because they remind me of the beauty in the whole dynamic of giving and receiving.

The beauty in taking time away from work and chores and other annoying adulting (see below) 

things to send up a pasta prayer.  Even though Husband insists this form of prayer was not covered in Seminary, it's a thing, people.  So far, it's been the most sacred part of my week.  To layer the noodles, grace, cheese, patience, sauce, courage, herbs, self-compassion for the lasagna-eater.   To honor that struggle and love and community all belong together in the same dish.  To give myself permission that when I find myself on the wrong side of circumstance, I can accept the lasagna from another.

PS- After I crafted this lasagna, and my blog post, I read that the WHO has decided there's a link between red meet and cancer.  I'm not sure what kind of cruel twist of fate this is.  That my newly discovered spiritual practice is inflicting cancer on my lasagna-eating heroes.  *Sigh*  Too much for one day.  I'm eating some bacon and going to bed.