The Kitchen I Share With Four People

You check the doorway first.

Every time. You come down the hall and you look, and if somebody is in there you turn around and go back, and you tell yourself you will go later, and later there is somebody else in there.

The kitchen belongs to five people, which means it belongs to nobody, which means using it feels like being in the way.

Your things are on one shelf. One pan, a plate, a mug that keeps migrating, and a bag of rice with your name on it in marker, which you wrote there and then felt slightly embarrassed about.

And there are four other people's things everywhere else, including the counter, including the burner you would use, including the sink most evenings.

So you eat in your room. Things that do not need a kitchen. And it is fine and it is not fine and you do not talk about it.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing here is going to suggest you buy anything or move anywhere.

One pan on one shelf in a kitchen you share with four people: that is the constraint and it is staying the constraint. Nobody is going to tell you that a small second thing would help, or that the real answer is your own place, because the real answer has to work tonight.

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am

There is a line in Philippians about circumstances, and it is not a line about being cheerful.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. (Philippians 4:11, King James Version)

I have learned.

That is the part that changes it. Contentment here is not a temperament that some people were born with and others simply missed. It is described as a thing acquired, by a specific man, over time, which means at some earlier point he did not have it.

And whatsoever state I am is deliberately wide. He is not saying he found a good arrangement. He is saying the arrangement stopped being the deciding factor.

You are looking at something learned rather than something you were supposed to already feel, and a kitchen you share with four people has never once been the thing deciding your evenings. Philippians 4:11 has a man describe contentment as acquired rather than natural, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody checking a doorway and turning around.

And notice what he does not do, because this is the trap in that hallway.

He does not wait for the state to change before he acts. The sentence is about being in the state, not about getting out of it, and there is no suggestion anywhere that the right circumstances are coming and everything begins then.

That is the difference between a man who cooks in a shared kitchen and a man who will cook when he has his own.

You have permission to begin inside the arrangement rather than after it, and waiting for a kitchen of your own has never once fed anybody an evening sooner. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody standing in a hallway deciding to go back, and Philippians 4:11 sets the whole thing in whatsoever state a man finds himself.

Being in the way is a feeling, not a finding

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. Being in the way is something you feel in that kitchen, and it is not something the other four have said.

That matters because the feeling has been getting treated as information. The feeling arrives, and it reads as though somebody is being inconvenienced, and you act on it as if it were a report from the room.

Nobody in that house has told you to cook less. Almost certainly, at least two of them do exactly what you do, and stand in that same doorway, and go back down the same hall.

And here is the thing about shared kitchens that nobody says out loud. The person who cooks in one is not the intruder. The person who cooks is the one using the room for what it is, and everybody else is storing things in it.

You were reading a feeling as a finding, and a room that belongs to five people has never once belonged to you less than to the other four. Philippians 4:11 puts contentment inside the circumstance rather than after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has been turning around in a hallway for months.

And here is the practical half of the practical half, which is about timing rather than courage.

Pick a time nobody wants. Early, or late, or the hour when everybody is out. Not because you have to hide, but because the first evening should be about a pan and not about negotiating a counter, and there is no medal for making it harder.

One burner. One pan. Ten minutes. Wash it and put it back on your shelf.

You have a time available tonight that costs nobody anything, and cooking when the room is quiet has never once been the same thing as hiding. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen at the hour nobody wants it, and Philippians 4:11 describes a learned thing rather than a brave thing.

What tonight is in that kitchen

So here is the assignment. Cook one thing in that shared kitchen tonight, and eat it sitting down.

Tonight. One thing. One burner. Keep it plain: rice with an egg on it. Pasta drained and then butter and cheese back in the same pan. Something with an onion that ends on toast. Do not go out and get anything, and use what is on your shelf, which is more than you think.

It may not be good. That is expected, and it is information about a first attempt rather than about the room or about the four other people in that house.

You are using a room you already pay for rather than apologizing to it, and one shelf has never once been too little to make a dinner from. Philippians 4:11 places contentment inside the state a man is actually in, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that burner with somebody cooking in a shared kitchen for the first time.

Then the second half, which is the one that does the work. Eat it sitting down, on a plate. In the kitchen if the kitchen is free, in your room if that is easier, but sitting, with a plate, and not standing over the pan waiting to be finished. Standing over a pan is how a person eats something that does not count, and tonight is going to count.

You are sitting down with it rather than eating it standing over a burner, and a plate in a shared house has never once been a lesser dinner. The Spirit of God is the one there with the plate and the chair, and Philippians 4:11 has a man learn something rather than wait for something.