I am a pessimist by design. My eyes fix in an upward glance, scanning the horizon for the other shoe to drop—a true believer in Murphy’s Law.
Over the years, this has produced a mantra that can, like the prophets’ message, burn inside me at such an impressive Scoville heat level that I must let it out or suffer existential heartburn. Unlike the psalmist’s Selah, my utterance is clear. It comes from a place of reason and experience.
When the expected happens, when the shenanigans ensue, my response is a one-word acknowledgment, a verbalization of the reckoning at hand–“Typical.” It has been on a loop since January 20th, 2025.
It was the bluest of Mondays when a convicted felon, a fictitious Appalachian, and a swarm of tech billionaires began dismantling what remained of democracy with the precision of a wrecking ball. All while telling a divided country how we should feel in this new “Golden Age of America.”
Like a guild of hucksters and saboteurs, the propaganda machine rolls with a singular voice promoting a fix-all snake oil. Their impotent bottled concoction of promise is that, at long last, the United States has returned to prominence as a world power.
Their message slides through fork-tongues and over mouths that champion the snipping of food assistance programs, cutting Medicaid, eradicating the Department of Education, leaving the Paris Agreement and World Health Organization, belittling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leaking war plans, and resurrecting the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Nothing says “winning” like invoking a former 18th-century law that grants a sitting president the authority to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation to deal with the complicated issue of immigration.
Those who must have misread the New Colossus’ invitation to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” can now self-deport thanks to the new Home Homeland Security app.
“Unbelievable,” said a friend.
“Appalling,” said another.
“Fascism,” someone muttered.
“He’ll be stopped,” a neighbor quips. “There’s laws to stop him.”
I want to tell this optimist that the new order is not playing the same game they are. The Monopoly money has been divided out ahead of time, and, like a Las Vegas casino, the odds are stacked in favor of a very White house.
Obviously, I have different reactions. I can’t hide it when the latest news from Washington breaks. No shock, surprise or feigned outrage creeps across my face.
Nope. All of it is, well, just sounds–typical. Par for the Mar-A-Lago golf course.
Don’t be mistaken; I’m not suffering from full-blown apathy. It’s just hard to be moved when you are constantly getting hit with “what the hell is happening” jabs.
A numbness sets in, and you brace for the next flurry. Sure, I continue to fight, but it feels like I’m in a perpetual defense stance.
That’s why it’s good for me to step away and detach when possible—hoping with every fiber of my being that something good is left in the world. I’m here to remind you to find and string those moments together. For me, this most often occurs around a lacquered bar top, a well-worn dining room table, or any place where good food and equally good conversation are served.
The former chef turned world traveler and raconteur Anthony Bourdain famously said, “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.” It’s a nugget of truth that I experienced firsthand recently while visiting with a couple in my community.
I received an invite to stop by their home so they could get to know and welcome their new pastor through proper Southern etiquette–feeding me until I begged for mercy. Eating in someone’s home amounts to entering the inner sanctum of others’ personal space. It is a rare occurrence in a society that still self-isolates regularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not that the prevalence of community meals wasn’t nose-diving before. Bygone are the days of Sunday suppers, where family and neighbors prioritized filing in elbow to elbow and passing plates and bowls back and forth. The idea of welcoming company over on a random Thursday night is a throwback to yesteryear that wasn’t lost on me.
My hosts met me on the front porch with greetings and hearty handshakes. Two steps in, they immediately offered a choice of beverage: water, tea or something stronger.
We chatted about what we’ve been up to that day—the coming and goings—taking time to unpack the small things that usually lead one to examine the more significant issues that make you scratch your head or weigh down your heart.
Meandering toward the kitchen, I got a whiff of oak and hickory wafting from the quart containers on the counter. One of my hosts spends her weeks working in the barbecue capital of the world, Lexington, North Carolina–a designation I know offends eastern North Carolinians and those from Kansas City. I won’t even bring Texans into this smoked meat conversation.
She’s picked up some holy hog on her way home. The slight aroma, delicate as a violet in early March, proves the regional cookery traditions are still alive and well in the Old North State. We pulled out chairs, took in the spread and bowed heads before breaking bread together.
I filled my plate with barbecue, hush puppies, green beans and slaw. Of course, no supper in the South can do without something coming from a casserole dish. A homemade grape salad fit the bill.
Satisfied and slightly uncomfortable, all signs of a hearty meal, we moved to the living room. An Old Fashion as good as I’ve had in any cocktail bar made its way into my hand.
Our conversation continued to come easy and rich like a delicate mousse cake. We talked about everything: family, our latest ailments, pasts we were proud of and some we’d like a do-over on. Somehow, we still found room to talk about food.
I’m a sucker for Southern foodways, and my hosts obliged me with a story about chicken muddle, a Brunswick stew-like concoction I’ve never heard of from the Tidewater region of Virginia. The dish was a staple for her growing up.
Chicken muddle is made in a sizable cast iron cauldron and not done until the stirring paddle can stand up on its own. Pulling out her phone, she showed me pictures of folks sitting around in fold-out lawn chairs, congregating in anticipation for the right level of thickness to reveal itself.
I asked question after question: How much soup can it make? How many people can it feed? How long does it take to cook? Her answer was unsurprising: “As long as it takes.”
I told her we should make some in the fall at the church out on the front lawn. She informed me she has a pot that her husband bought her from a place not 15 minutes from where she grew up. I smiled and told her I would add it to the church calendar.
An hour later, I began my exit and thanked them for their hospitality. I fought the urge to have my lowball glass topped off, but I couldn’t say no to their insistence that I take some food home. This included more grape salad and loose grapes for my kids, who are curious about everything except diversifying their food choices.
They also sent me home with an aloe vera plant. And then, a cold plastic container was placed in my hand. Chicken muddle, frozen from the last big get-together of my host and her people.
I waited two days before my wife and I ate it. Good and thawed, I resurrected the contents on the eye of my stove. We ate it with a homemade biscuit standing around the kitchen island.
The muddle was savory, but with hints of sweetness from the vegetables. It’s the sort of elixir made for a frigid day but could just as quickly go down on a humid July evening as sparkles of lightning bugs dance in a backyard.
It is also the sort of grub that tells you more about someone. Not only where they’re from but what they’re made of, who they are, and what brings them comfort.
I couldn’t help but think of a lowly Galilean who used food to tell his story, who told his friends to eat and drink and remember him whenever they ate like that again. After eating it, I know my neighbors a bit better. I’ll never eat chicken muddle again without thinking of them and what they gave me that night: hope.
Hope and a reason to bite my tongue the next time the word “typical” tries to come out of my mouth. In a chaotic world, that’s as good a start as any in trying to change things for the better.
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Justin Cox received his theological education from Campbell University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity and is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry program at McAfee School of Theology. He is an ordained minister holding standing in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA. When not spending time with his spouse and daughters, he can be found writing and baking late into the night. His thoughts and reflections are his own.
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