A few weeks ago I spent the day in my kitchen cooking a Palestinian feast for my friends to raise money for Amos Trust and their work in Gaza. While I was cooking during the day I thought often about women living in tents in Gaza, having lost everything, and thought how easy it is to take for granted such a simple thing as to be able to cook a meal. I don’t know how you recover from a genocide as family, a community, a country, but my instinct is that gathering people around tables to eat meals cooked with love is an important part of rebuilding your life. This is my prayer for the women and men of Gaza.
I pray for you a kitchen.
Cupboards carefully stocked for the every day and the special occasion
A drawer full of spices, a tin of olive oil,
bunches of herbs in water on your windowsill
A stove that heats at the flick of a switch
May new neighbours give you well-loved saucepans
like those handed down from your grandmother and her grandmother.
I pray for you a table
A cloth to cover it, flowers to put on it
Plenty of chairs so you can always squeeze one more in
A place where your broken family absorbs other broken families
so no one is alone
I pray for you a day of cooking
of conjuring Palestine with spices, aubergines, pomegranates, tomatoes
Recreating dishes that go back generations
Each recipe telling a story
Each smell evoking memories
Each taste building anticipation
I pray for you a moment
when everyone has arrived and the air is full of laughter
while you grieve for those not there and hold tight those who are.
I pray for you a moment to pause and see what’s happening.
You will fill their bellies
You will tend their hearts
You will keep hope alive.
Inshallah.
