Sunday, Day 22 and Monday, Day 23: Koulourakia

Sunday, Day 22: Koulourakia

We taught the children at church how to make the Greek cookies called koulourakia—how to roll out three strands of dough and braid them—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They did their best to braid or at least twist the dough into shape, and loved brushing on the eggs and sprinkling on way too many sesame seeds.

While we worked, we talked about the parable of the yeast, and all the ways that little things can become big. We talked about Rosa Parks refusing to get up and how that sparked the Civil Rights Movement, although one of the kids noted she hadn’t been the first, only the first that those in power wanted to make visible. I tried to talk about how Jesus called a couple fisherman to follow him, and that’s what started an entire movement to make love of self and neighbor the way to get close to God, instead of other things that weren’t so important, and how this small lesson was the Big Lesson we were supposed to learn from Jesus, but I pretty much lost them by that point.

I got them back when we started talking about living joyfully. How do we know Jesus believed it was important to live joyfully? I asked, and they had answers: all of the meals he shared with people he loved, the abundance of the loaves and fishes, the first miracle at the wedding.

When we got to the last batch, we let them make whatever they wanted, preferably something related to the theme of “living joyfully.” And here is what they made:

--A giant cookie. And a second one.
--A robin’s egg cookie.
--A smiley face cookie.
--A triangle cookie that could be the Holy Trinity or something or other from Harry Potter—a reference I didn’t totally get.
--A big bowl.
--A big heart.

Afterwards they went outside with chalk and drew all over the sidewalk and let the first warm spring day in weeks wash over them, laughing together.

Success.

Monday, Day 23: Koulourakia, Take Two

I remember making koulourakia with my Thea Katina. My sister and I were in her kitchen, and as far as I can remember, nobody else was around. She showed us how to make the braided cookies, but after we’d done a few, she let us make any shape we wanted.

I rolled out a cylinder so long that she had to lay diagonally across two cookie pans. I insisted it couldn’t be cut in half. She went along with it.

“What is it?” she wanted to know.

I answered, triumphantly, “The longest cookie ever made.”

She braided another koulouraki, and replied, “It’s actually a lot harder to make the small ones.”

It wasn’t until I was working on koulourakia with children around the age I must have been then that I understood what she meant—not just in reality (because, after all, they ARE hard to braid), but spiritually, also.

We can usually do the big things that have to be done, especially in a pinch. We can send money (if we have extra) when there's a natural disaster. We can bake for the funeral, show up, take a dish over to the house the week after. We can mediate a difficult conversation when a friend asks for help, can take a day off work to help another friend move after her divorce. We can and should be bold in our justice work—march in the streets, stand outside our legislator’s office until he agrees to see us, ask the hard question in a public forum. 

But sometimes the small things require more faithfulness and attention. We take the time to really understand the issues before we begin advocating for change. We get into the right mindset before we mediate the difficult conversation, make the food for the funeral, show up at the grieving person's house. We're quiet enough in our hearts to see what the person needs. We keep our bodies healthy so we can help our friend with her move or march in the march when the time comes.  We check in with the person who experienced a loss after the cards and hot dishes have stopped arriving--a month later, six months later, two years later. 

We reach out to the person who doesn't agree with us, and treat her kindly, even if she's not always kind to us. We do this until at some point she inevitably opens her heart and is at least willing to talk about the issues on which we disagree. That is the harder, and sometimes more impactful, work of justice--changing hearts and minds in the intimate, less comfortable way. 

“Be faithful in small things,” Mother Theresa said, “because it is in them that your strength lies.”