My favorite meal growing up was rice, spam, and corn. My mom would fry up the spam in a skillet, and I’d mix it all together. The most perfect bite on the planet is one that had all three ingredients. I had no idea it was considered poor people food or gross by other communities. I also had no idea how much love was being dished up, but I could taste it.
My dad was in the military, and when I was really young, he went overseas for a year. There was no zoom or Facetime back then. I think I remember my mom getting a phone call every once in a while, but otherwise we could send letters. One day, I was sitting at my desk with the note started:
“Dear Daddy,”…
I hadn’t seen him in so long, I was trying to think of the best way I could tell him I loved him since he couldn’t hear my voice or see me. I knew the right word choice really mattered. I thought about it for a long time before I finally landed on it:
“I love you more than spam.”
After I finished writing the whole letter and sent it out, I wondered if it had been good enough. Had I really conveyed my love as best as I could? Would he think it was weird? Was my letter good enough? I wanted my dad to understand his presence was missed. When he got back from that trip and we had our airport reunion, I remember wrapping my little arms around his neck and asking if he’d gotten my letter. “I tried to tell you how much I loved you. Did you understand me?” He smiled back and responded, “I felt the love oozing from the page, because I know how much you love spam.”
Mission accomplished.
What I didn’t realize was how spam would continue to be weaved in joyful ways throughout my life. It was the meal I made for myself after a stressful day at the office and needed to show myself a little love. I am now a handler to a gentle police K9 who protects children from sexual predators. She has a powerful story of failure and resiliency. Somehow, spam musubi also made its way into her story. Musubi is a local Hawaiian treat you can find in gas stations and convenience stores, and it consists of a slice of spam on a small block of rice held together by a piece of seaweed. It is a beloved local beach snack which I shared with her one day post-search warrant as we sat in my government car sweaty, exhausted, and hungry. It was my way of telling her how proud I was of how hard she worked that day and that I loved her. After I posted the first picture of us sharing the local treat, we began arriving to schools and other community events where people brought spam to show their love for Lulu for protecting kids.
In the Christian faith, there’s the story of the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus tells his disciples to feed His followers. After expressing disbelief and explaining this would be impossible logistically, a disciple identifies a small boy with five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes this small offering and not only feeds all 5,000 people…but there was enough left over to fill a whopping 12 baskets While this is miraculous indeed, my mind always wondered about the little boy. Like my spam, did he think his fish and loaves weren’t enough to feed the crowd? Did he hesitate to give over his beloved lunch box that his loving mom made for him?
But none of that mattered. All Jesus wanted to know was, “Will you trust me with it?”
While I know not everyone reading this follows the Christian faith, our spirituality is something we all seek to understand. Whether you follow Jesus or a different spiritual discipline, the question of: “Am I enough?” is something we must reckon with at one point or another.
When I think of myself at my purest, it’s the little girl version of myself offering up a plate of rice, spam, and corn. It’s not filet mignon with truffled potatoes or lobster. But it’s an earnest offering of a food that sustained generations of people just like me. There is love, justice, struggle, heritage, culture, and provision weaved into this plate. And every day, that little girl approaches The Creator with her plate and offers it with joy. Knowing it’s not fancy but believing it’s my best, because it’s filled with love. As I release the plate to Him, I trust in my Creator to do more with it than I could’ve ever imagined. To nourish not only bodies but minister to peoples’ spirits and let them know how loved they truly are.
I know you have a gift. You work so hard trying to unleash into the world, because you know how badly it’s needed. Some of you have tried everything to walk that path without seeing the success you seek. Others have achieved some success by the world’s standards but know there’s another level in them ready to be unlocked. And even more feel held back by past trauma and hurts, believing they taint their offering and make it “less than.” I humbly offer these blocks are a result of not walking in alignment with who you are truly supposed to be. You have tried to fit the mold this world has told you to conform yourself too, and we have all resisted parts of our past that we feel define us.
Ending this cycle stops with a choice.
Stop offering up a plate that you don’t even like to eat just because the world told you this was the acceptable offering. Instead offer up your very best with love and humility – it doesn’t matter how lowly and insignificant others may deem it to be or the humble beginnings from where this ofrenda came from. Release what doesn’t serve you, offer up the best parts of you, and watch how God/the Creator/the universe wows you with what He can do with it.
So what beloved dish are you offering the world, hermana?
——–
Rice and spam photo credit: Wikihow
