Growing up I escaped to Rita McCullough’s house a number of times.

The McCulloughs lived three doors down on Birch Drive, and our families went toe-to-toe with the number of kids.

Four a piece.

We all ranged in age, but through the years remained close in different ways, and while it was always good to have friends to hang with, my favorite part of those trips to the McCulloughs were the talks with their mom, Rita.

Around Rita’s kitchen table, each with our cups of comfort (hers usually brimming with coffee, mine either milk or juice), it felt safe.

I could tell her how I felt, or share something I was hiding, or cry.  Or laugh.  Or cry some more.

Whatever I brought to Rita’s table, she was loving and open enough to let me leave it there.

In addition to being an incredible mom and devoted wife, sister, daughter, and aunt, Rita also worked as a nurse – and perhaps most importantly, Rita is a woman of deep faith.

Maybe, that’s why I always found her home to be a place of great healing.

Lately, I’ve been wondering how to reconnect with comfort amdist the chaos, and Rita’s table and her many cups of comfort continue to come to mind.

I have dozens (maybe hundreds) of memories of Rita and I talking while she was sipping from a mug…around her table, in her Ford Taurus, at the softball field…but I don’t have a single memory of her ever using a travel mug.

I can’t ever remember her packing up the cup of comfort to go and drinking it…whenever…instead, it always felt like if the coffee was going to be poured, and the conversation was going to be had, than that simply was what was going to happen.

Simple, beautiful, present intention.

That’s what I’m holding on to this morning -as I pour another cup of comfort, and give thanks to the people and practices that help me come back to the here and now with peace and ease.