Sunday breakfasts were always special, not because of what we ate, but that my dad was at the breakfast table for only that morning since his early morning bakery shifts prevented this from happening otherwise. With our newly polished shoes and Sunday clothes we walked the 6 or 7 blocks to church and later drove. The hour or so in church is fixed in my mind mostly as the comfortable feeling of sitting between parents and siblings, hearing my parents voices join the others in so many still familiar hymns and psalms, the passing of peppermints just before the sermon and collection plates to receive our nickels and dimes and then visiting in the church basement until we made our way back home, anticipating what my mom and later sisters, might have made for dessert, always enjoyed after church, with coffee and before lunch and often shared with friends or newcomers, who had been invited over to share that time. Depending who was visiting and who was most accomplished at playing organ, after coffee and cream horns, vanilla slices, or some other pastry we would sing around the organ until Sunday soup was ready to be served.
Those Sunday hospitality traditions have been carried out in our life together in much the same way as we grew up. My parents would invite the new teachers hired into the church community, a newly married couple moving into town or other long-time immigrant friends. For many years it was unusual not to have someone over after church.
Covid has reshaped our Sundays. For more than a year our Sunday rhythms have been disrupted. We listen to and participate in various online worship services. With Covid restrictions in place we don’t have people over for coffee and dessert. We read more books, do more zooming, and watch more movies than before. Some of these changes have been good but hospitality has been hard, taking new forms. Maybe like our immigrant parents who innovated upon arrival with new hospitality ideas, we will need to do the same.