This is the poem I didn’t write because I’ve been thinking about rice cookers. I read reviews, skimmed commissioned articles, and wondered if this would be the one that solved all our problems. Our problems are not rice problems.

During the season of Lent, the church we go to hosts dinner church on Thursday nights - allowing for additional reflection and community. I call it Soup Church because we have soup. And church. A few weeks ago, I signed up to share the reflection for a night. The theme was “Finding ourselves and God in the in-between, a reflection on Lent and the Good Samaritan” (the reading for the week). Here is what I shared, updated a bit for this space.

January was filled with good intentions. Intentions to do better. Intentions to drink less or not at all. To be less online. To write more, to read more. To spend more in-person time with friends and family. Intentions to not have any intentions. None of these were my intentions, but I finally gave in and even spent an evening drawing out my Big Intention For The Week and coloring it in with some colored pencils my teenager rustled up for me.