Today my friend Emma
Renninger would have turned 40 years old. She was killed in an auto accident on
the back roads of Central Pennsylvania in early January. On this anniversary of
her birth, I offer this reflection on the gift of her life.
Over a decade ago, I was privileged to be invited to a
Journey Feast for Gordon Gray. This man, a member of the Chippewa Cree, lived
on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana where I had been visiting for two weeks. As part
of this end of life ritual, the community gathered four days after Gordon’s
death, each person bringing food and placing it on a large table, much
like a pot-luck supper. Everyone sat on the floor around the room on
cloths or blankets, much like gathering for a picnic at an outdoor concert.
Servers made their way around the room, giving us a sample of all the food
brought; it was expected that you would eat some of everything. I had three
plates and four bowls at the foot of my chair. Multiply that by fifty or more
people and you get a sense of the enormous quantity. Yet none of this food was
to be wasted. To-go containers were provided so that nothing was left over. This
sharing of food was not just a polite way of being together in mourning; it was
essential, expected.
I was not able to attend the funeral for Emma, a woman
who brought people together in unexpected ways. Emma was a farmer, cook, and
entrepreneur. She named her Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania restaurant, “Emma’s Food
for Life.” She once confided to me she regretted naming the restaurant after
herself; such an inextricable personal link can be a burden. She indeed carried
that burden, weighed down by the many responsibilities of owning, managing, and
cooking for a restaurant as well as a farm. But true to its name, it was “food
for life.”
Those who knew Emma as family, close friend, or casual restaurant
attendee, still mourn her untimely death as such a loss precisely because her
life generated “life” in such a tangible way. She fed us. She gave us food for
our journeys. Literally. When I mentioned her death to my six-year old, she
immediately grieved the loss of Emma’s “best-ever” pizza served on the colorful
kid’s plates. And her yummy French fries. But it wasn’t so much the food
itself, amazingly delicious though it was. It was her care for how she sourced
her food, prepared, and served it to others that was so life-giving.
Emma was part of the “slow food” locavore movement before it was
trendy. She carried out this venture in a part of the country that didn’t fully appreciate this treasure in
its own backyard. When I worked as a waitress in the restaurant for two years,
there would be very slow days, a table or two at most. Yet those who came
valued the slow pace as a kind of sanctuary from the “food for death” culture— fast, commercially-processed food that thrived on waste.
Emma sought to create a different kind of food sanctuary that
valued connection. She knew other local farmers who would bring their produce
to the restaurant. She raised her own pigs and chickens. For years, our family
kept a “pig bucket” at home where we would deposit all of our food scraps that
couldn’t go in the compost. When full, we would deliver the bucket to Emma at
the restaurant and she made sure it made it to her pigs. (Leftover birthday
cake was a particular favorite).
Emma’s life fostered connection not only between people but
also between the earth and its creatures. Materials were not wasted. Likewise,
time to shoot the breeze with the restaurant regulars was not wasted minutes,
but an opportunity. Because Emma took the time to listen to these folks, many
who became dear friends, her restaurant was indeed food for life, food for the
body and the soul.
“There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and
that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle.”- Sara Miles.
Last winter when I read a memoir entitled Take this Bread by Sara Miles, I thought
of Emma countless times. Miles shares her story as an agnostic woman who
discovered the holiness of food in church and out, reaching out to others at a San Francisco food pantry that served fresh food and produce, not the kind of rejected food
that took up space in dark kitchen cupboards. I meant to tell Emma how much I
saw what she did as a ministry, as a way she reached out to the community and
fed them in ways beyond the obvious. I didn’t do that, a regret I now carry.
Instead I share these words, a tribute to a woman whose life touched mine and
so many others in unexpected, beautiful ways. They were not perfect ways; they
were not without anger and frustration, not without regret or deep sadness. But
they were beautiful in that she showed how to work tirelessly for a vision, to
care for a community, and to create a kind of sacred space adorned with art
created by local artists and flowers from her garden.
In the Chippewa Cree tradition, food was not only for the
living; it was for the dead. It was taken to the burial ground because the
deceased would need it for their next journey. In the Christian tradition
familiar to me, eating together is also central to life and death, holy
communion an expression of God with us and the people of God gathered together,
fed for our journeys now and of those of which we cannot see the ending.
Feeding is a kind
of miracle. I give thanks for Emma’s feeding us with her spirit and her
delicious meals. I hope those who continue to journey on still sense her
presence when they share food and care for the land that gives life.
