A Road Less Travelled

Last night we celebrated the Night of the Burning Plum. Many of us were nursing coughs or colds so the night was punctuated with sniffles, coughs and the hunt for the tissue box. And still it was delightful.

I went over to the Lansberry house early to help set up. Theresa commented that this was exactly the dinner party she always wanted to have. There were the regular folks- us, Lansberrys- and then there were the almost regulars- the Peiffers. There were the every-now-and-againers- the Creaths- and then there were the random people we kept adding in. Heather from Seth and James’s workplace, Ryan who we met at our previous church and have kept in contact with, and Ralph and Keith who started out Ben-Ezra friends and have become Lansberry friends, too. Altogether there were 27 people, 14 adults and 13 children. We feasted on pork raised by people we go to church with, mashed potatoes, salad and apple salad. For dessert we enjoyed the traditional ice cream with flaming plum cherry brandy sauce. When our hearts had been made properly merry we went into the living room to tell our stories.

Of the 27 of us only three adults and two children did not contribute anything to the stories. And even then there was lots of shouting, laughing and comments from the adults and joyous screaming from Margary. David Peiffer was really the only person who didn’t contribute anything, but he was asleep upstairs during the story telling. People told all manner of stories from wacky to serious to satire. I was impressed with how much most (most) of the children had improved from last year and definitely from the year before. There was a lot of audience participation even in the stories that weren’t designed that way. In fact, my voice was already going hoarse at the beginning of the evening and with all the shouting and laughing I have now lost almost all of my voice. I sound like a boy going through the worst stage of puberty. It’s kinda funny actually.

The night was a complete success. We had about twenty people packed around one long table and yet most of the time the conversation crisscrossed the table from end to end. James wrapped up the evening by talking about a family who’s life had been full of death. But then a baby had come to them and had helped to reawaken the joy and hope of the family. And he reminded us that that was what the Burning Plum was about. It was about love and hope together in a world filled with death and sorrow. It is our devotion to and our joy in each other that makes the Plum burn bright and strong. And it is because of evenings like last night that the Plum still burns. May its light carry us through this year and into the next.