Maple Festival Tastes of Communion

Taste this . . . have you tried this? . . . have a bite of this . . . do you want to take some of this home? . . .

Maple Festival in the Highlands is one big communion table where we’re feeding each other with offerings from hearts filled with the love we call neighborliness.

But make no mistake – it’s love.

Have a taste of this, says Bev, of the sample of butter-rich goodies from Pearl’s friend from Norfolk, who sent some batches of love for the Ladies’ Auxiliary.

Take home some sausage gravy, Patsy offers, her body bent and broken over in exhaustion from the making.

Have some sweet tea I made, Jean offers up, like shed blood, as she goes home to lie down, too sick to come, too determined to stay home.

John slips me an extra sausage pattie from his station at the serving line.

Tim bestows a free donut fresh from his hands to mine and I lick the maple glaze from my gloved fingers and proclaim it good and very good.

Gloria hoards the box of fresh donuts I bring her in the night on her lap, smiling with the glee of a child.

Francis and Kristie and Jessie generationally surround me, swooping a plate of buckwheat cakes with sausage gravy into my eager hands.

It is a time of abundance and superabundance.

It is a time of sacrifice as people gather and work hard, giving their time and their effort – and this from a people who already work hard – every day.

It is communion.

Broken bodies are given in service.

The blood sweat of earnest labor pours forth from them.

I stand back a bit and behold them all and know that I am in love with them.

Communion.

Changing Landscapes

When you’re a visitor to a place, you see changing landscapes.

When you’re from the place, you see the same landscape changing.

That’s what it was like at the Maple Festival here in Highland County today.  The sun shone warmly on each face taking its turn through the kaliedescope of my narrow vision and I was blessed by each one . . . town and country coming together in the joy of the stroll through the countryside in springtime. . . sidewalk chalk provided to entertain two girls as their dads worked the hot dog grill drawing child visitors to them and the magic a little splash of color on warm cement invariably creates . . . women tired from working the yard sale taking a moment to stand on the stoop outside the kitchen door and enjoy the warmth of the sun on their faces replaced as if in a well-choreographed dance by young adult women happy to find a squat to simply sit and visit . . . the well-oiled machine that is the women’s fundraiser inside the church moving in tandem with the seeming chaos of the men’s event outside, both working together for the best of all . . .the people circling the tiny church fellowship hall resembling not so much yard-sale bargain hunters as the gentrified promenaders of ages past . . .

Oh how I love this life.

Maple Festival Time in Highland County, Virginia

Highland County Chamber of Commerce

It’s maple syrup time in these mountains I call home.  The sap is running and taps capture the maple fluid to boil it and boil it and boil it down into something that eventually becomes maple syrup.

People around here speak about maple syrup the way folks in France and Napa speak of wines:  Now 2009, that was a good year!  Just look at that color!  Smell this!

For two weekends, we engage in a maple frenzy of flavor – tea bags, popcorn, sausage, donuts, assorted nuts, not to mention pancakes and buckwheat cakes (my own favorite) – you name it, we put maple syrup on it and proclaim it good.

Maple Festival time (the 2nd & 3rd weekends of March) here in the Virginia Highlands is what community looks like to me.

Teachers and students at the school get their assignments early – there’s no asking for volunteers; the assumption is that if you’re at the school, you’ll be working to help raise monies for on-going school projects by putting in your time at Maple Festival, with school closed for students both Mondays after, as much, I suspect to give students and teachers a day of rest as to allow for in-service.

Folks near and far take time off from work to come and help.

People who don’t belong to the service clubs like the Ruritans and Lions sign up to work to help in the massive fundraising efforts of making thousands of pancakes and sausage patties for the hungry hordes.

And then there’s the insider stuff, which I love (who doesn’t love the feeling of being an insider?): calling in your donut order so you don’t have to stand in line for hours, or even better, getting the first donuts Friday night, hot and fresh, calling around to neighbors to see who wants you to pick up a dozen for them too . . . coming early to shop the yard sale because you’ll be working when it’s officially open for business . . . going in the back door to the kitchens to say hello to fellow workers and maybe sneak a bite of some tasty offering . . . getting to know your neighbors better while standing side-by-side up to your elbows in dishwater . . . sighing in collective satisfaction with feet up when it’s all over but the counting . . .

It’s kind of quiet in Highland County just now . . . the calm before the storm of tens of thousands of people descending on a place that usually boasts 2,400 inhabitants.

Come Sunday, I’ll be exhausted, but for now, I’m just looking forward to seeing my neighbors.