Radical Hospitality

Someone call my Mother. Right now. Someone pick up a phone, call my Mother and say, "What is Betsy's favorite dessert?" ...or, "What dessert would be most likely to drive a stake through Betsy's diet?" I guarantee she'll have one, tiny, three-letter word to share with you. Pie.

I am admitting it here and now. I love pie. I don't just love pie the way I love sweet potatoes, per say, where I can write verses about the perfection of their sweetness and starchiness. I love pie in such a way that I really, truly just want to eat it. I don't want to write about it, I don't want to discuss it, I don't want to analyze it. I simply want to eat it. Any pie that is put in front of me, I probably want to eat. Fruit pies, cream pies, savory pies, cheese pies, double-crust, single-crust, cookie-crust, animal, vegetable, or humanity's creation known as Jello. No matter what kind of pie it is, I'm going to want to eat it. It has been a long time since I last let myself indulge in pie. I am a very well behaved human animal, and I eat things that are good for my body these days. However this weekend, a reason came to pass for me to fill up a dainty, frosted white dessert plate with slice after slice of pie, and indulge to my heart's delight.

This past weekend I participated in the United Campus Ministry's First Annual Pie-Bake Off. The event was a fundraiser for United Campus Ministry in Athens, Ohio. What was originally meant to be a competition turned into something even better, something more gloriously communal and more in line with the ideals of UCM. It turned into nothing more than an afternoon of antiquated community fellowship. Gone are the days when someone would spend a Sunday afternoon visiting a friend, or a relative over a pot of freshly brewed coffee and a plate of home baked treats. Now, we as Americans seem to be more likely found drowning our artificial, manifested sorrows related to Autumn athletics in endless kegs of watery American drafts. Or perhaps more appropriate for this past Sunday in Athens, we are more likely to be found caught up in someone else's idea of who we ought to be, as hundreds of young freshwomen vied for expensive spots within one of the University's many prestigious sororities, known for such achievements as infamous wet t-shirt contests. Sunday fellowship has fallen by the wayside, coinciding with America's compulsion to attend early morning Church services, or Church services period.

The second part of that idea may not be so bad. No one should do something they feel is compulsory, and mindless. However, in letting go of our rigid standard of required American Christianity, we've also inevitably lost something which is deeply attached to it-fellowship. We do not spend quality time with one another nearly as often as we should. We seem to be constantly attuned to something else, some other purpose for getting together, some arbitrary event that forces us to get to know one another. While I know some may argue that Sunday afternoon football is their form of fellowship, and I understand that, I also know that this past weekend I had an opportunity to gather with a group of people most of whom I'd never met, and I was forced to sit down and talk. It was wonderful. There was no television blaring in the background, no one was checking the scores, there was no music playing to distract from a conversation. We were simply groups of people, some acquainted, some not, gathered around tables over plates mounded full of freshly made pie, warming our fingers around cups of coffee and tea, and talking the way human beings ought to.



This originally advertised pie contest became something much more human at the end of the day. Competition would've ruined it, I believe. One of UCM's mantras is, "Radical hospitality." United Campus Ministry is an organization that strives to make everyone feel welcome, accepted, comfortable and served...absolutely without regard to difference. They are firm supporters and enablers of interfaith spirituality, social justice, and probably most importantly for this past Sunday, community meals. Nothing could've been more appropriate for UCM's mission of compassionate connectedness than a pie bake-off, turned retro Sunday afternoon visit. Pie is one of my top-ranked comfort foods. It requires no elaborate explanation, but rather its only requirement is to nourish and sustain not only our stomachs but our souls. We are as American as apple pie, after all. We are pie people. Pie makes me reminisce about the dessert finish of my family's Sunday dinners, or loading up trays full of tiny paper plates each donning a slice to be sold at my Church's Christmas Bazaar, or Father's Day, when every year without fail we conjure up a fresh strawberry pie made with just picked warm berries for my Dad. My family dinners, our Christmas Bazaar, and Father's Day all revolve around Sundays. Sundays are days of fellowship, compassion, caring, concern and love. Sundays are pie days. UCM hit this one on the nose.


With my delicious, "Queen Honeybea's Honey Pumpkin Pie."

I am so glad I not only had the opportunity to bake a pie for UCM, but even more so grateful to have spent an afternoon getting to know people I've never met, enjoying the homemade pies crafted with love, care, and all things local by the very folks who were surrounding me in the warm basement of UCM on that chilly, rainy Sunday. Thanks to the generous sliding scale donations made by the participants and tasters, United Campus Ministry raised almost $400 on pie alone. Thank you to UCM for hosting such a wonderful, heart-warming, community event. Thank you for letting me share my love of pie with you and our community. I'm already planning for next year.