{"id":6066,"date":"2011-03-25T19:29:56","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T01:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?p=6066"},"modified":"2011-03-25T19:29:56","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T01:29:56","slug":"the-healing-powers-of-pickled-beets-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/03\/25\/the-healing-powers-of-pickled-beets-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Healing Powers of Pickled Beets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/div>\n

\u00a0If you were following this blog last summer, you may remember that my husband took a tumble on his bike in August, leading to six weeks on crutches. I wrote a post on \u201cThe Healing Powers of Pickled Beets,\u201d a piece that led to the following essay that appeared in a recent issue of Woman\u2019s Day Magazine. You can read it here <\/a>on their website or below:<\/em><\/p>\n

When our neighbor Julia heard about my husband\u2019s bike accident last summer, she made us an offer we couldn\u2019t refuse:\u00a0 \u201cLet me bring dinner over,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always found meatloaf and pickled beets to be very healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was right (and the meal she brought over was tasty indeed, especially those beets).\u00a0 Her act of culinary generosity was just one of an array of kindnesses showered upon us during the six weeks when my husband was on crutches.<\/p>\n

While we appreciated the phone calls, visits, and cards, it was the food that meant the most to us.\u00a0 In one sense those meals weren\u2019t\u00a0 necessary\u2014Bob was the one who was incapacitated, not me, and I was perfectly capable of putting together a meal. But those dishes carried more than nutrition:\u00a0 they carried comfort.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s a Midwestern thing, but in Iowa casseroles follow crises as surely as summer follows spring.\u00a0 Surgeries, chemotherapy, and deaths in the family prompt friends and family to get busy in the kitchen, for food is the most basic and elemental of gifts, a reminder of our need for nourishment even when our hearts are aching and our bodies broken.<\/p>\n

In one sense there was a kind of karmic calculus at work in our friends\u2019 gifts to us. Over the years I\u2019ve made meals for others, and those good deeds returned to us when we were going through a rough patch ourselves.<\/p>\n

But during those weeks when Bob was healing, I began to understand that something deeper was at work, something I hadn\u2019t realized when I was on the other side of the culinary equation. I think that when you have a medical crisis of some sort, in a sense you fall out of the boat that is your normal life. You\u2019re suddenly at sea in an unfamiliar milieu of hospital rooms, doctors, nurses, and assorted medical apparatus. Even after you return home, your daily routines are altered.\u00a0 And so when friends call, stop by, or bring those casseroles, it\u2019s as if they\u2019re throwing you a life preserver and hauling you back into the boat.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got you!\u201d they call as they pull the line in.\u00a0 \u201cJust hang on and everything\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

That lifeline of food reconnected us to our larger community in unexpected and\u00a0 welcome ways.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t seen our friends Carolyn, Cindee, and Dennett for far too long, for example, and when they dropped off meals we ended up spending hours discussing kids, jobs, and future plans, slowly reweaving friendships that in our busyness we had neglected.<\/p>\n

Those meals also helped ease the stress of my new daily routine, as I found myself suddenly in charge of doing far more around the house. On our own we would have had a lot of take-out pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches, but thanks to the food angels we enjoyed delectable meals like Jan\u2019s barbequed beef, Brenda\u2019s lasagna, and souvlaki from Julia (who graced us with several meals, bless her generous heart). With Bob\u2019s leg up on a chair, we would eat in the living room over TV trays, always beginning each meal with a toast to the ones who had prepared it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re fortunate in that Bob\u2019s medical misadventure was relatively minor and our lives returned to normal after six weeks. But his recovery period gave us a deeper empathy for those who must deal with sickness for many months or years.\u00a0 We now realize that the line that separates health from disability is razor-thin, and that those who deal with chronic illness need a steady stream of friends bearing food and good cheer, not just a one-time delivery.<\/p>\n

Given our experiences, I vow to try to do things differently in the future. While in the past I\u2019ve made meals for friends in need, too often I decided that I was busy and that someone else would likely step forward to help.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m going to be less inclined to just make a phone call and more willing to get out a casserole pan. I want to keep in mind Cindee\u2019s trick of delivering the chicken in a crockpot so that it\u2019s ready to be plugged in and cooked.\u00a0 And I will remember that sometimes people going through hard times want both food and company, and sometimes just a pot of chili and quick hug are enough.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll do all this because I\u2019ve learned the truth of our neighbor Julia\u2019s words:\u00a0 if made by people who care for you, pickled beets do indeed have amazing powers of healing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0If you were following this blog last summer, you may remember that my husband took a tumble on his bike in August, leading to six weeks on crutches. I wrote a post on \u201cThe Healing Powers of Pickled Beets,\u201d a piece that led to the following essay that appeared in a recent issue of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,60],"tags":[589],"class_list":["post-6066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-healing","tag-pickled-beets"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Healing Powers of Pickled Beets<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u00a0 \u00a0If you were following this blog last summer, you may remember that my husband took a tumble on his bike in August, leading to six weeks on crutches. 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