this recipe

There’s something about a cake, made from scratch.  Joy and delight mark this cake as different than boughten cake from the store.   

First, for the baker.  Putting ingredients together and scraping down the bowl may not feel like much.  But then, the timer dings, and you open the oven door.  The cake has magically risen, oh so beautifully!  The wafting aroma calls to all the people in the house.  And as you pull out the cake in all its gloriousness, there’s a moment of transcendence.  You’ve created something out of nothing.  Meaning out of raw materials.  Culture in a singular moment. 

The pleasure of creation cannot be contained, for such is the felicitous nature of a homemade cake.  A warm, freshly baked cake begs to be shared.  This hospitality extends until everyone’s seated and talking, face-to-face.    

With a slice of cake and coffee in hand, people feel more genial and friendly.  The conversation ebbs and flows, shifting from the mundane to the significant.  And as stories are shared and relationships deepen, you realize — the cake was just the starting point, the beginning.  Who knew that a handful of ingredients could lead to such fullness and beauty?  That life could be found in the roundness of a cake, waiting to be shared?

Connection and belonging, community and acceptance.  All shared in a slice of cake.  The collective grace found in the contours of a 9-inch cake pan knows no bounds.