Tender Mercies: Coffee Breaks

This sumptuous and scrumptious little treat was the offering at this morning's coffee break...poppy seed and almond and cream cheese filled braid. And if you think that might be a once-in-a-great-while offering, then you would be wrong. We seem to have some heavenly and home made and made-from-scratch (as they say in the South) goodie each day.

At 10:00 each morning a bell rings to summon us to the mid-morning break. The bell does not have to toll for long before a stream of guests and staffers are heading up the hill to partake. In summer and on good days, which this summer has been nearly every day, we have the coffee break outside. There always seems to be plenty for everyone, so no one has to rush to make certain they get a serving of whatever has been laid out for the taking. (Human nature is human nature even here in the wilderness at a Lutheran retreat. If people think there might be a shortage on something desirable, they will rush to make sure they are not the ones left out.)

Coffee break was not always this way at Holden. Striving always to use up all the food that was prepared to minimize compost and landfill, in past years coffee break consisted of (mostly) leftovers...things like cold pancakes and cold squares of aggkaka (you have to be Norwegian, I think, but it is most like a breakfast egg custard...great when it is hot and topped with maple syrup or powdered sugar or fresh blueberries...a bit a bit iffy served cold) and yesterday's bread...all of which could be (and was) eaten with peanut butter and jelly liberally applied. We took it all in stride. ..I am not making this up! We accepted the fact that we were at Holden. What did you expect for coffee break?

Things have changed. Now we expect things like this wonderful braid...or banana chocolate chip bread...or cookies (oatmeal-raisin or chocolate chip or chocolate)...or sticky buns...or a variety of devilishly good cream cheese spreads on a variety of crackers...or gingerbread squares...or caramel and pecan topped cinnamon rolls...or lemon squares...I could go on and on. And did I say that when the time for coffee break arrives, whatever is served is still warm from the oven?

For half an hour, we have our coffee and a treat and sit about on the lawn or on the deck (called "the ark") or in the chairs scattered about the lawn, and we eat, and we chat, or we just feel the warm sun between the shoulder blades, and we have good reason to believe that we are truly blessed.

The attendant chipmunks do not think it is such a bad deal either. No crumb is left uneaten...by anyone or by any creature.