Her Card Is Still In The Drawer

It is still in the drawer.

You know which drawer, and you know roughly where in it, and you have opened that drawer for other reasons a hundred times and seen the corner of it and closed it again.

You have taken it out too. More than once. You lift it far enough to see the writing and then you put it back down without ever lifting it clear.

And it has been a long time now.

The reason you give yourself is that you would make it wrong. That is true as far as it goes. You would. The proportions were in her hands and not on that card, and whatever you produced would be an approximation of a thing you can taste perfectly in your memory.

But underneath that is the real one, and it is worth saying plainly: as long as it is uncooked, the last of her cooking is still ahead of you. The moment you make it, that particular thing is behind you, and there is a finite amount of forward left where she is concerned.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything about a kitchen.

This is about her and the cooking is second.

Nothing here is going to hurry you toward a pan, and nobody is going to tell you what she would have wanted or that she would be glad. And if you read this all the way to the end and decide not to cook it, that is a complete and good ending and this article will say so plainly.

This do in remembrance of me

There is a sentence said over a meal the night before a death, and the instruction in it is a physical one.

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19, King James Version)

This do in remembrance of me.

Do. It is not think of me, and it is not feel something about me. The remembering is attached to an action with hands in it, done with bread, at a table, with other people.

And the thing being asked for is the plainest possible object. Bread. Not something difficult, not something that requires skill, and nothing whose value depends on it being made well.

You are being asked for an act rather than for a feeling, and remembering somebody has never once required the thing in your hands to be done well. Luke 22:19 attaches the remembering to bread and a table rather than to a state of mind, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who has lifted a card and put it down again.

And notice what the instruction does not include.

There is no standard. Nobody is told how it must be done, no quality is specified, and nowhere in two thousand years of that meal being kept has anybody been told they did the bread badly.

The doing is the whole of it. The doing has always been the whole of it.

You have an instruction with no standard attached, and an act done imperfectly has never once failed to be the act. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been holding a card to a test nobody set, and Luke 22:19 sets no quality anywhere on what is asked.

The arithmetic underneath the drawer

Here is the second part, and it is about the real reason rather than the stated one.

The sum runs like this: while the card is uncooked, there is still something of her ahead. Cook it and that is spent, and the amount of forward remaining goes down by one.

That is love doing arithmetic, and it is completely understandable, and it is also not how any of this works. She is not a quantity. The dish is not a portion of her that gets used up. And the drawer is not a reserve.

What the drawer actually is, if you look at it straight, is a place where a piece of her handwriting has been kept in the dark for years by somebody who loves her.

You were guarding a reserve that does not exist, and love doing arithmetic has never once been the same thing as love being careful. Luke 22:19 asks for the doing without ever rationing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who has been keeping something in a drawer in the dark.

And here is the part that matters most, and it is permission rather than instruction. You do not have to cook it. Not this week, not ever, and not because you failed something. Some people cook it and something opens. Some people take the card out, read it aloud, put it somewhere it is kept rather than hidden, and find that this was the whole of what they needed, and that ending is not a lesser ending.

The only thing worth doing this week is taking it out and reading it out loud. The rest stays entirely open.

You have permission for this to end at the reading, and a card taken out and put back has never once been the smaller version of anything. The Spirit of God is the one at that drawer with a woman who is free either way, and Luke 22:19 puts the weight on one plain act and asks for nothing beyond it.

What this week is, with that card

So here is the assignment, and most of it is not cooking. Take the card out, read it out loud, and cook it this week or decide not to.

All the way out of the drawer this time. Not lifted and looked at. Out, in your hand, on the counter, and then read out loud, in her words, in your voice, in that kitchen, all the way to the end.

It will be difficult, and that is the point rather than an accident. Something happens when a dead woman's words come out of a living mouth, and no explanation of it in advance works as well as doing it.

You are letting her words be spoken rather than only looked at, and a card read out loud has never once used anything up. Luke 22:19 attaches the remembering to something done with hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that kitchen with a woman reading her mother's writing aloud.

Then the second half, which is genuinely open. Cook it this week, or decide not to. If you cook it, it will not taste like hers, and that is not a failure toward her, because the taste lived in a woman rather than in a list. And if you decide not to, say that out loud too, in the same voice, and put the card somewhere it is kept rather than hidden, because a piece of her handwriting deserves the treatment a piece of her handwriting gets.

You are choosing rather than postponing, and a decision not to cook it has never once been the same thing as not having faced it. The Spirit of God is the one at that counter with a card that is finally out of the dark, and Luke 22:19 asks for one plain act and sets no standard on it at all.