Eat, Pray, Love

Today my book group met at my house today, and we discussed our book we read this month, "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert.

It wasn't only the book we read, but that theme also seemed to resonate through our time together today. What a peaceful, enjoyable, enriching experience I had today with the four other women who were at my home today. Times like this are such a blessing.

Because the author Gilbert ate her way through Italy, I decided to have an Italian themed menu for today's book group. And I think we enjoyed the food today almost as much as Gilbert enjoyed her food experience in Italy.

I contributed some cheese filled tortellini with red sauce, and some bread with dipping oil.

NP brought a lovely green salad she had "The Veranda", our fancy restaurant in uptown Kellogg, prepare.

VA prepared a wonderful pasta salad made with tubular pasta, pesto, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese and Kalamata olives.

MP experimented on a soup, and we are so glad she did. It was a wonderful mixture of cannelloni beans, Swiss Chard, and sweet potatoes, with a special pesto to put on the top. Divine!!

SD brought dessert, which was a chocolate cake with marscapone cheese in the middle, and a thick chocolate glaze. I just had to have two pieces.

As we enjoyed our food, we discussed how much we enjoyed the book, and how Gilbert brought out the characters so well in this book. MP liked the Indonesia section the best, but the rest of us hadn't made it past India, so we are all looking forward to finishing the book.

One part I enjoyed most was her describing learning about meditation in India and how real and practical she made meditation sound, and the struggles she had trying to quiet her mind to listen to God. Boy, could I relate to that section of the story. Often, when I finally get a quiet moment to listen to what God's Spirit has to say to me, it seems as if my mind wants to go in a million different directions.

As always, we had wonderful conversation other than the book, sharing our lives with one another, our frustrations, our joys, our triumphs, and our struggles. Isn't that what life is about...having people to build relationships with and share these things.

We ate our wonderful Italian food.

We prayed as we shared our lives, and also shared about our former book group member, VG, who has moved away, but recently had a lumpectomy and found cancer in her breast. We pray for her. We pray for MG's daughter who continues to battle cancer. We pray for NP, as her son contemplates entering the military after graduation. She would like him to wait, and she cries, and hopes he goes to college, becomes an officer, then enters the military. She is scared of him enlisting because of the war.

We love, because we take the time to listen. We take the time to share our lives. Even though it is only a couple hours each month, those are precious moments for each of us...one we all look forward to and hope we don't miss. We did miss JR this month. She had a good excuse, though. She is returning from a trip to St. Thomas where she has been scuba diving.

Next month we are reading Frank Peretti's book "Monster" for our book selection. Our Christmas book group is always fun, because we always have a cookie exchange. We are meeting at MP's house this year.

I encourage those of you reading this blog post to take some time to

"eat, pray, love".

It will definitely enrich your day.